• The Salt Lake Deseret News runs an editorial on SWAT raids.
• When occupational licensing bullshit meets anti-immigration horseshit.
• Man raided, dog shot, “small amount of narcotics” found. No big deal.
• Strong lager is the new heroin. Worse yet, someone is making a profit!
• The self-perpetuating police state: Asset forfeiture funds used to purchase surveillance cameras.
• NYC police team takes a detour on the way to a drug raid, pulls over an unarmed man, kills him.

Jack Brammer writes:

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a Kentucky law prohibiting grocery and convenience stores from selling wine and distilled spirits is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II of Louisville ruled that the state law “violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause in that it prohibits certain grocery stores, gas stations and others … from obtaining a license to sell package liquor and wine.”

In Kentucky locations where alcohol sales are allowed, beer — but not wine or spirits — may be sold in grocery stores. Grocery stores, however, may get a license to sell wine and liquor if they provide a separate entrance to that part of the store, where minors are not allowed to work. A store employee of legal age also is required to conduct beer sales.

Such requirements do not apply to drug stores.

“You can walk into a large CVS or Walgreen’s and they can have as many groceries to sell as many grocery stores do. Yet they can sell alcoholic beverages in the store while a grocery cannot,” said Steve Pitt, a Louisville attorney who represents Maxwell’s Pic-Pac, Inc. and the Food and Wine Coalition in their civil lawsuit against the state Alcoholic Beverage Control.

…

If it stands, the ruling could swamp the state with license applications from grocery stores, convenience stores and gas stations that want to sell liquor and wine.

The judge wrote in his 29-page order that there is little difference today between grocery stores and drug stores.

Pitt said the ruling will allow more convenience for consumers, especially those who shop in grocery stores. He noted that the ruling does not affect businesses in a dry county that prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Eric Gregory, president of the Frankfort-based Kentucky Distillers’ Association, said his group’s members have not had a chance to discuss Heyburn’s ruling.

The group has opposed proposals in the state legislature to allow sales of distilled spirits in grocery stores, saying it would hurt small liquor retail businesses.

Daniel Meyer, executive secretary and general counsel of Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of Kentucky, based in Louisville, said he was “surprised” by the ruling but noted that it was not a final order.

“We were not a part of the lawsuit,” Meyer said. “I guess now we’ll have to see what the parties have to say about it and what this conference the judge wants might produce.”

The law dealing with the sale of wine and liquor in pharmacies and grocery stores dates to Prohibition, when prescriptions could be obtained to buy alcohol at drug stores, Meyer said.

The sales were restricted in grocery stores, he said, because the thought was that minors are often in grocery stores and should not be exposed to booze.

Kentucky has a hodgepodge of laws dealing with the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Gov. Steve Beshear has set up a special task force headed by Public Protection Secretary Robert Vance to try to modernize and streamline Kentucky’s laws.

It is to hold the first of three public forums Thursday in Frankfort and report its recommendations to Beshear in January for possible consideration during the 2013 General Assembly.

By Eapen Thampy, Americans for Forfeiture Reform.

I recently had the very good fortune to taste two excellent bottlings from northeastern Napa winery Jarvis over the last week that I thought were worth sharing.  If you’re ever in Napa, Jarvis is a winery worth visiting; the facilities are contained entirely in a cave system that make for quite the tour. Dimitri Tchelistcheff, the son of legendary Napa wine legend André Tchelistcheff, has been the winemaker since 1994. Robert Parker does taste these wines but I was unable to find a report for these bottles.

We first opened the 2002 Jarvis Cabernet Cabernet Sauvignon (375ml). On opening, the wine exhibited the pleasant and distinct aroma of pencil lead (graphite), cherry preserves, dark currant, and pepper; the wine itself was silky in texture, with vanilla and round berry flavors and a sweetness that wasn’t overwhelming. After ten years in the bottle, this wine is in its prime and could last another 5-8 years if you have any and are willing to hold on. (Estimated Retail, $30-$35)

The second bottle we opened was the 2004 Jarvis “Lake William” blend made from 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 29% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot. In comparison to the 2002 Jarvis Cabernet Sauvigon the “Lake William” is a bigger, “fleshier” wine, with more structure and a integrated palate of toasty vanilla, berry compote, and dark cocoa. I would imagine this bottle has another 5-10 years of life left, and patience will be rewarded as this wine continues to evolve in bottle. (Estimated retail $90-$105)

I was asked for a homebrew recipe, so here’s one that brews quickly and is perfect for this time of year. Island King Pineapple Wheat is light, easy to make, and easy to drink. It’s also not too common to see a pineapple beer at all, so it tends to be a hit at parties.

(more…)

I just love things like the beer ad at right. Dutch beer. Spanish language copy. American bus stop (specifically, Los Angeles). One person who might not like it so much? Knox County, Tenn. Commissioner Mike Brown.

As far as he’s concerned, if you want to get a beer permit in this county, you’d better be able to speak English.

Or he’ll vote against you.

“Yes, it’s not right. If you can’t understand English, then you can’t understand the law,” said Brown, who represents the 9th District, which encompasses the southern part of the county.

Brown, because he is a commissioner, sits on the county beer board, which regulates beer permits in the county. It meets once a month, and applicants must get the board’s permission to sell beer.

More here.

The editorial board of the Knoxville News Sentinel rightly referred to the proposal–which is apparently D.O.A.–”clearly unconstitutional,” and also explained why it’s nonsense at the practical level.

Business owners don’t have to speak English fluently in order to sell products. Many legal immigrants who came here to build a better life from countries all over the globe have used the successful operation of small businesses such as convenience stores and family-owned grocery markets to achieve the American Dream. Brown’s proposal would have turned some legal immigrants into second-class citizens.

You can let Commissioner Brown know how you feel about his proposal (no threats or expletives in any language!) by emailing him at michael.brown@knoxcounty.org.

–Baylen Linnekin

The fabulous Randy Barnett has a great post up at the Volokh Conspiracy today in which he annotates the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. While Barnett credits the Declaration as being “powerful stuff”–which it is–his post on the topic itself inspired a few goosebumps when I read it this morning.

The one part of Barnett’s post I find lacking (or maybe stunted) is where he writes of the Declaration’s

famous reference to ‘a long train of abuses and usurpations’ and the list that follows. In some cases, these specific complaints account for provisions eventually included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

He’s right, but by only alluding to the list that follows (and stopping his annotation short of that) he leaves readers hanging a bit. OK, maybe not all readers. But I’m the most captive of audiences when it comes to looking at the meaning and origins of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. In fact, my own ongoing research in this area looks at the many ways in which British violations of American colonists rights in food led Thomas Jefferson and his fellow signers to list the “long train of abuses and usurpations” by the British, and James Madison later to enshrine in the Bill of Rights protections of individual rights meant to stem future abuses and usurpations by the new American government.

What’s that mean, exactly? Well, in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson’s “long train” includes the fact the King has caused British troops to be quartered in colonial taverns and homes “to harass our people, and eat out their substance”—a direct reference to two quartering acts enacted by the British in the 1760s and 1770s. (And so yes–if you were paying attention you noted that the word “eat” appears in the Declaration of Independence.) These abominable quartering laws required colonists not just to house British troops but to provide them with certain enumerated food and drink. When James Madison later authored the Bill of Rights, he needed look back no further than the aforementioned “long train of abuses and usurpations” to be reminded that the quartering of British troops (very much including the compelled provisioning of food and drink) was one of the American colonists’ greatest grievances against the British in the period leading up to the American Revolution. Hence, the Third Amendment.

Another good example of the vital relationship between food and drink and the rights we enjoy today as Americans–also part of my research–also ties in nicely with today’s holiday. That link is the essential one between the Revolutionary- and pre-Revolutionary-era gatherings that took place in colonial American taverns and the language and spirit of the Assembly Clause. If you’d like to read my recent Hastings Constitutional Law Journal article on that topic–Tavern Talk & the Origins of the Assembly Clause–check it out here. If you’d rather crack a beer and skip to the good parts, then crack said beer and hit play to check out this new video clip in which I raise a glass to the Assembly Clause, colonial American taverns and their modern iterations, our Founding Fathers, and Independence.

Happy Independence Day, America!

–Baylen Linnekin

• Another high-ranking police officer in Minneapolis is facing a misconduct investigation. It’s this particular officer’s second investigation in three years.
• Former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry Thompson worries about the lack of mens rea in our criminal code. As Scott Greenfield pointed out on Twitter, it would be nice if these people would worry about these things before they have former in front of their titles.
• Headline of the day.
• For your amusement: “The Beatles never existed.”
• Fortune magazine investigation concludes that there’s nothing to Fast & Furious. The report seemed convincing until I read Katie Pavlich’s rebuttal, which points to ATF emails that seem to directly refute some of the Fortune report’s key findings. So I have no idea what to think.
• Here is the inside of a camel’s mouth.
• Ronald Thompson gets a new trial in Florida. He was sentenced to the state’s mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison for firing two warning shots into the ground.
• In Michigan: Talking urinal cakes warn you not to drink and drive.

Jonathan Turley, in USA Today.

Seventeen states continue to exercise control over liquor as absurd relics from the 1930s. Ironically, there is no better example of the failures of central planning than the “ABC stores” around the country from Alabama to Pennsylvania. Indeed, if Karl Marx were alive and trying to buy Schnapps today, he might reconsider aspects of Das Kapital after dealing with our central alcohol planners.

These and other laws seem based on the belief that “for the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.” The man who said that was Marx, a great believer in central control. These states have allowed a fixed bureaucracy to take hold of a market — a self-perpetuating and inefficient middleman in the market.

Unlike Marx’s vision, free enterprise is the touchstone of our society. With such free enterprise comes free choice — not simply the freedom to choose between the options approved by the government. Smith in The Wealth of Nations stressed that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Smith could just as well have added that it should also not be from the benevolence of the bureaucrat any more than the brewer — at least in deciding our drink of choice.

Turley starts the piece with a salvo at conservatives for giving a pass to state-run liquor stores, while seeing socialism just about everywhere else. That might be true in Utah, but in states considering reform right now, it’s generally Republicans who are trying to privatize state-controlled booze, and Democrats who are opposing them.

• North Carolina changes its liquor laws so partying politicians can have a good time.
• Headline of the day.
• In the L.A. Times, a former L.A. deputy police chief argues for drug legalization.
• Andy Dick drunkenly stumbles into a stranger’s house, tries to make out with everyone, takes a sloppy pee, then leaves.
• But for video: L.A. County edition.
• Congratulations, Charles Carreon. You are the new laughingstock of the Internet. And all by your own doing.

• Elinor Ostrom, RIP.
• You can stream the forthcoming album from Agitator favorites the Cold Stares here.
• Headline of the day.
• Ft. Wayne city councilman pulled over under suspicion of DWI. He calls the sheriff, who instructs the deputy to let him go.
• Mr. Yummy vs. Mr. Whippy.
• Laws named after dead people, continued . . .
•  ”The author in fancy dress as a side of bacon . . . “
• Maia Szalavitz responds to that hyperbolic New York Times article about teens and Adderall.
• Russia cracks down on dissent. But dissent grows.

• The New York Times gets to the heart of the important questions facing our nation.
• All about plywood.
• The Michigan legislature is considering a SWAT transparency bill similar to the one passed in Maryland. I’ll have more on this later.
• Ken at Popehad is as good as anyone at bringing attention to the routine, mundane injustices that go on in criminal courts.
• Five classic teen moral panics.
• Headline of the day.
• Virginia sheriff requires body cavity searches of nurses who administer health care to his inmates.
• Atlanta prosecutor caught dealing drugs in a sting operation. He was also a defense attorney for one of the cops who shot Kathryn Johnston.

• People really did this?
• Something else to worry about: Worms eating your brain.
• Videos exonerate photographers wrongly charged with crimes in New York, Seattle. Be sure to appreciate those first three paragraphs.
• Walter Olson takes on Nicholas Kristof’s latest crusade: Boycotting alcohol manufacturers because of alcoholism on American Indian reservations.
• Pakistan bans Twitter.
• Congressman from the party of limited government procured millions in earmarks to purchase $17,000 helicopter drip pans from a contractor in his district.
• Before he was taken off the case, a Texas judge was preparing to posthumously exonerate Cameron Todd Willingham.
• Photo of the day (via Brian Tannebaum, via Carlos Miller):

• Interesting article about the ecosystem of the U.S. Senate.
• Department of Energy continued to pay employees travel per diems 14 years after they had permanently relocated to their new job sites. Total payouts amounted to about $1.8 million. (Insert joke about how only the federal government can reduce the cost of health care.)
• Chicago PD preemptively raids an apartment occupied by NATO protesters. Finds a home beer-making kit.
• Here’s more on that police beating of a teenager in Houston.
• Cop attempts to photograph another cop sleeping on the job. Sleeping cop pulls gun on camera-wielding cop.
• Whiskey and sex have certainly been paired before, but never quite like this.
• Federal government recommends that prison staff convicted of sexual assault be terminated. Well, yeah. You would think.

• Murder of journalists is on the rise. As a journalist, I find this newsworthy.
• Favorite new panic story: New “trend” in which kids are climbing into trees, then drinking until they fall out.
• Chuck Schumer isn’t going to like this.
• No indictment in the police killing of Kenneth Chamberlain.
• Federal court gives John Yoo immunity from torture lawsuit.
• The Clap is back, and this time it’s angry.
• Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson finds a reason to praise Obama: His willingness to kill people.
• Headline of the day.
• Jacob Sullum on the outrageous prosecution of Marissa Alexander.

• The Washington City Paper profiles food freedom fighter and Agitator pal Baylen Linnekin.
• The U.S. government is not looking good in this Chen Guangcheng story.
• Speaking of China, the Chinese government has reluctantly agreed to allow dissident Mao Yushi leave the country . . . in order to accept an award from the Cato Institute for his work to advance the cause of freedom.
• Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug Czar Speeches.
• Former ICE intelligence chief, other top ICE officials scammed $600,000 from U.S. taxpayers. Seems like a more important story than, for example, the Secret Service hiring prostitutes in countries where prostitution is legal.
• Headline of the day. The actual story likely of interest to regular readers here. Still. Quite a headline.
• Two city officials in Dallas attack a reporter’s hat.
• Pennsylvania cop under investigation for Tasering a juvenile nine times while the kid was in a jail cell.
• Philly cop alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman during a drug raid won’t be be prosecuted because the DA’s office failed to bring the charges in time.

• New Mexico wants to shut off your water if you don’t pay your traffic tickets.
• Stellar week for TSA: Agents harass a 7-year-old disabled girl, then scare the hell out of a four-year-old for the crime of hugging her grandmother. Somehow, I’ll bet the Koch brothers put those kids up to this.
• “Change is a big problem in Zimbabwe.” But not in the way you might think.
• Headline of the day, auf Deutsch edition.
• I can’t figure out if this is a gag or just a really, really dumb idea.
• “The GOP of Thrones.”
• Quick! Everyone panic!

Great article in the Nashville City Paper about the proliferation of distilleries in Tennessee. Until just a few years ago, there were only two, Jack Daniels and George Dickel. Now there are about a dozen. Here’s why:

From the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 until the most recent law change, it was exceptionally difficult to get legal approval to distill spirits in the state of Tennessee. Only a few counties allowed the practice, and for a distillery to be approved it had to get a referendum on the ballot and then win a countywide vote. This made it nearly impossible for new producers to start up.

In 2009 all that changed. A bill was drafted that would permit distilleries in any county in Tennessee where there are both operating liquor stores and liquor by the drink, which opens up much of the state. But there was a moment where things didn’t look good for the bill.

“A state senator said to us at one point: ‘Wine is good because Jesus drank wine. But beer and whiskey are bad, because Jesus did not drink those,’ ” Darek Bell of Nashville-based Corsair Distillery recalled. “It felt like we had traveled back in time to Prohibition.”

“At one point it looked like the bill would fail,” Bell said. “An older representative got up and spoke. He said ‘I don’t know anything about this stuff. But if it will help the farmers in my community sell more corn, then I am all for it.’ And just like that, the opinion turned, and the bill seemed to sail through after that.”

But that doesn’t mean there still aren’t some daunting regulatory hurdles. The most asinine is probably the wholesaler/distributor laws, variations of which are common to many states. The only real purpose of these laws is to drive up the cost of booze in order to enrich people who run alcohol wholesaling businesses. Wholesalers are also licensed by the state, and usually given state-granted monopolies over large chunks of territories.

 [T]o make it to the shelves, a distillery must sign on with a distributor, which is a very delicate aspect of the process. Tennessee liquor distribution, which also includes wine and higher-alcohol beer, is subject to what is known as a franchise law. This law was put in place to protect the franchisee, in this case, the wholesaler. According to local attorney Will Cheek, once a distiller enters into a contract with
a wholesaler, it is very, very difficult to terminate that contract. In fact, he couldn’t recall a single case of  such a relationship being terminated.

So, hypothetically, were a distiller to ever get crossways with the distributor for whatever reason, leaving that relationship would be nearly impossible.

“It’s a harder choice than choosing your spouse. Getting divorced is far easier than breaking up with your distributor,” Cheek said.

This could prove especially difficult for microdistilleries, which might not get as much notice on a wholesaler’s radar. Cheek said the law is structured to protect the wholesalers from big, out-of-state competitors.

“From a distiller’s standpoint, the law is ridiculous. It offers every protection to the wholesaler and almost none for the distiller,” he said.

If you sat down and consciously tried to design a system prone to corruption and highly favorable to large, incumbent alcohol companies at the expense of upstarts, I don’t think you could do much better than this.

But the most beautiful example of regulatory nonsense can’t be blamed on Bible Belt temperance. It comes courtesyof the federal government. In order to get a federal permit for whiskey-makin’ . . .

 . . . you have to be able to prove you know how to make whiskey but are not allowed to have actually made it . . .

Wonderful, isn’t it? It’s illegal to distill booze for any reason, even solely for personal consumption. So to get a federal permit, you really do have to swear to the feds that you know how to distill, but it’s illegal for you to ever have tried.*

Related: This Tennessee-distilled wonderfulness is the best bourbon I’ve ever had. Don’t be deterred by the chocolate. It’s delightfully subtle.

*A commenter points out that someone could conceivably have learned the art of distilling in another country. Good point! That also means that when it comes to whiskey-making, the feds are giving a huge advantage to .  .  . foreigners!

This actually happened a few hundred feet from where I live, though I don’t remember hearing about it at the time. An intoxicated man apparently struck and killed two pedestrians at a roundabout, then collided with a taxi.

It’s a really poorly designed intersection. There’s a smooth, three-lane, one-way road that runs for about a mile, then stops abruptly at a roundabout with quite a bit of pedestrian traffic, especially at night. So people fly up the road, then zip around the circle without looking out for people crossing. It’s especially bad late at night when people coming home from the strip of bars on the street where this happened are probably in a state where they’re less prone to be looking out for cars. (I mean, so I’ve heard.)

Of course, poorly designed or not, it doesn’t excuse the this guy, who was apparently pretty drunk. He was been charged with vehicular homicide. I’m not sold on the appropriateness of that charge for drivers in these cases (although this guy didn’t help matters by fleeing the scene—twice).

But what happened to the guy’s girlfriend seems way over the top.

Erin Brown’s boyfriend was charged with vehicular homicide and assault. She had been in the passenger seat. But in a rare use of the law, police also are charging Brown with the same crimes.

She faces as many as three decades in prison.

Police and prosecutors says Brown violated a part of the highway safety section of the Tennessee Code that makes it unlawful for the owner of a vehicle to direct, require or knowingly permit the operation of a vehicle in any manner contrary to the law.

Allowing someone to drive your car when you know they are drunk, prosecutors say, makes you criminally responsible for their actions.

The District Attorney’s Office commonly charges vehicle owners with driving under the influence for allowing a drunk person to drive their car.

But the vehicular homicide charge, a felony, against Brown is the first of its kind in Nashville.

Brown apparently was drunk too, and in her state of intoxication,she improperly gauged the level of her boyfriend’s intoxication before handing him the keys.

I’m okay with finding some civil liability for Brown, here. But it seems awfully excessive to take this woman’s life away from her for a split-second error in judgment that indirectly led to her boyfriend unintentionally striking and killing two people.

Brown apparently set herself up for the charge by telling police she gave her boyfriend the keys because he seemed “less drunk” than she was. So she basically admitted she knew he was intoxicated. (Again—never, ever talk to the police. Get an attorney.) But I wonder. What if she hadn’t made that statement? Could she have been charged if she should have known her boyfriend was drunk? How obviously drunk would he have needed to be? What if he was, say, just a hair above the legal limit? How much of a duty do you have to determine someone’s sobriety before you allow them to drive your car?

Seems to me that this is a pretty good example of “just because you can charge someone with a crime doesn’t mean you should.”

• Last week, the Keene, New Hampshire city council voted 9-4 in favor of purchasing the Lenco, Bearcat.
• 11-year-old handcuffed, taken to a holding facility for having a “bad attitude.”
• U.S. government says it can seize any .com., .net, or .org domain, no matter where the company that owns it is incorporated.
• Good bit of contrarianism from Michael Kinsley: The case against the case against Rush Limbaugh.
• Housing for hipsters.
• San Francisco police haven’t been conducting accuracy tests on breath test devices used in DUI cases. They’re supposed to conduct them every 10 days. They haven’t conducted any in six years.
• Michigan State will offer a course on surviving a zombie apocalypse.

• British government, public health activists say alcoholism running rampant even though per capita consumption is down.
• States looking to pass yet more policies to curb access to prescription drugs. Note that one politician quoted refers to “patients” trying to manipulate the system, not “addicts” or “dealers.” A patient trying to manipulate the system is a patient who can’t get the drugs he needs, because of the system.
• I feel another law named after a dead person coming on.
• Oakland cops were given body-mounted cameras to improve relations with the public. But they aren’t turning them on when they’re policing protests.
• The best outcome to the birth control debate: Make the pill available over the counter. I have a feeling neither side would approve.
• Philly cops say they aren’t required to observe bike lanes.
• Middle-aged American Family Association columnist calls high school junior a “small-minded and vengeful brat.” He also calls her “mean.”

• So this is fairly terrifying. But remember — debt doesn’t matter!
• More coverage of Keene vs. the Bearcat from the local college paper.
• Rutherford County, Tennessee hires anti-Islam group to “train” deputies at a seminar run in an vocally anti-Muslim church. What could possibly go wrong? More here.
• Toronto head of DUI enforcement (allegedly) comes to work drunk.
• Ignorance of the law is no defense. Unless you’re in law enforcement.

• Iran is planning to execute a Canadian-born software developer because his product was used by a pornographic website. (NOTE: Per the comments, the Guardian article linked in the Reason post actually say the Iranian high court quashed the death sentence. But it has since been reinstated.)
• More on how Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 
• Judge allows Houston residents to become party to lawsuit between the city and a red light camera contractor.
• Feds end criminal investigation of Lance Armstrong, but “sources close to the investigation” continue to smear him in the press, anyway. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a criminal investigation into who is leaking grand jury testimony.
• Houston TV station bites on the vodka-soaked tampon story. Favorite quote from alleged expert on teen drinking habits: “More often than not, it’s happening in a lot of the Houston area.” More often than not? What could that possibly mean?
• Attempted puppycide.
• French court fines Google for providing a free map service, which is apparently an anti-competitive act of aggression against French companies that charge money to use their maps.

• Cribs: The GOP Edition.
• This is the most terrifying thing I’ve read in weeks. And I’m not even a carpenter ant.
• Incredible photos from yesterday’s cruise ship sinking in Italy.
• We may soon have our first picture of a black hole.
• Panic of the day.
• First person account of a bad interaction with the New Orleans Police Department.
• Lawsuit: Family woken, taken outside, handcuffed at gunpoint after neighbor mistakenly reports burglary.
• Responding to a rape call, Louisiana police break down the door, storm the wrong house. Sheriff calls the mistake a “boo-boo.”

• I think I’ll pass.
• David Boaz catches the Heritage Foundation using some blatantly misleading graphs to argue for more defense spending. That the Iraq and Afghanistan wars aren’t included in the graphs makes them all the more dishonest.
• TSA posts its top 10 “catches” of 2011. Bruce Schneier points out that none of them were actually terrorists.
• I don’t like where this is going.
• New Hampshire activists get police officer to concede he was wrong about the state’s wiretapping law.
• CNN, which left Gary Johnson out of debates because he wasn’t polling high enough in their poll that didn’t offer him as an option, will now break its own rules to let Rick Perry participate in an upcoming debate.
• Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to law mandating licensing for interior design.
• Bad news. Also, more bad news.

• Headline of the day. Article is actually from September. But wow.
• More wine?
• This photo? Just the latest evidence that we’re really, really close to winning.
• Zero tolerance + anti-bullying hysteria + Internet = criminal charges for teen’s innocuous Facebook post.
• A Ron Paul-touted conspiracy that turned out to be true.
• One of the sadder year-end lists you’ll read.
• Back in 1956, you’d have needed one of these to store each of your iTunes songs.
• Some great space-related time-lapse videos from the past year.
• An undiscovered Ron Paul newsletter.