• You will soon be fined $1000 for throwing a Frisbee or football on the beach in L.A. County.
• I’m quoted in this Nashville Scene piece on police militarization in Tennessee’s Rutherford County.
• HIV/AIDS activist faces six months in jail for violating prosecution agreement by smoking medical marijuana. And t’s far from clear that he violated the agreement.
• “The Media’s Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion Of The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision.” Not written by someone you might expect.
• Brazilian government demands hosting service remove a URL it doesn’t like.
• Here’s another good Mark Hemingway deconstruction of bias in a “fact checking” piece.
• Gay man rates “the ten hottest homophobes on the Internet.”

Back when the smoking bans were spreading across the country, those of us opposed to them made the point that you could make many of the same arguments about perfume and cologne that ban proponents were making about second hand smoke. (And there’s about as much evidence that fragrances are a health risk, which is to say very little.)

But you can’t really make a reductio argument for too long before someone embraces it.

Many women love wearing perfume, but have you ever gotten a headache from someone who has sprayed on way too much of a scent you don’t like? Back in 2008, Susan McBride, sued Detroit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming a co-worker’s fragrance made it hard for her to breathe and do her job. She was eventually awarded $100,000, and the city warned workers to avoid using scented products like perfume, cologne, deodorant, lotion, and aftershave. Now New Hampshire is looking to do the same.

State representative Michele Peckham is sponsoring House Bill 1444 which hopes to ban state employees who work with the public from wearing perfume. Apparently a constituent with extreme allergies approached Peckham with the proposal. “It may seem silly, but it’s a health issue,” Peckham told the Union Leader. “Many people have violent reactions to strong scents.”

The author then poses an honest question that puts this nonsense into the proper perspective:

Allergies and annoyances aside, should the government be able to regulate what we smell like?

The bans at the moment are just for state employees. But that’s merely where these ideas start. Just to hammer the point home, this, from  a tweet from Stacy Malkan, head of an organization called the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

Fragrance is the new secondhand smoke.

Of course, body odor is fairly offensive to the senses as well. Don’t we deserve protection from that? Clearly the proper balance here is for the federal government to require regular showers and the application of deodorant, but ban all but the unscented varieties. All of this would be proper under the authority  of the Commerce Clause, of course.

Georgia State Rep. Pamela Dickerson has introduced a silly law that would prohibit Photoshopping someone’s face onto a naked body, then posting the result on the Interent. Naturally, someone on the Internet responded with this. (Possibly NSFW.)

We fight them with ridicule. Conan O’Brien got into the act last night, too. See the video below. (Probably SFW, but not safe for your dreams.)

Meanwhile, a Louisiana parish wants to ban the wearing of pajamas in public.

• New Florida Marlins acquisition Mark Buerhle can’t live in Miami because he own an 18-month old Staffie, and Miami-Dade County has a dumb ban on “pit bulls.”  I explain the numbskullery of breed-specific legislation here.
• Ken at Popehat draws the line between recording police, take-down notices, and SOPA.
• Alabama minister sues after his photo was posted to the local sheriff’s “most wanted” web page. It was posted after a tip from an informant.
• U.K. couple cleared in the midst of a shaken baby trial after post-mortem exam reveals the child had rickets.
• Veteran photographer threatened by L.A. cop for violating the cop’s “right to privacy.”
• Tumblr of the moment: Ron Paul meets Ron Swanson.
• The threatening letter that the FBI anonymously sent to Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Not The Onion: Californians will vote on whether porn stars should be required to wear condoms.
• It’s all just going to get dumber and dumber until November.
• Gene Healy: the five worst op-eds of 2011. His delightfully Friedmanesque closer: “And so, my friends, we roll up our sleeves and limp forward, hunkered down to face what 2012 holds, our boats borne back ceaselessly into the past, yet always, always, twirling toward freedom.”
• Alternet publishes article calling for government monitoring of doctors and their pain patients, a crackdown on prescription painkillers, and generally expanding the drug war, all because . . . corporations are evil. And Florida’s governor loves the Tea Party. Or something.
• A list of all the new reasons for which governments will send you to jail, starting on Sunday.
• Woman says she was arrested, had her phone confiscated after trying to record a police beating in North Carolina.

• Another conservative against the drug war.
• Putin pulls 99.48 percent of the vote . . . in Chechnya. The other .52 percent slipped on a patch of ice this morning.
• After $56 billion and 10 years . . . TSA is junk.
• “There’s absolutely no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed in any way by an unlicensed interior designer.”
• Virginia Court of Appeals exonerates Thomas Haynesworth. He had served 27 years for two rapes in the 1980s.

• Great piece by my HuffPost colleague John Rudolf about an Alabama woman trying to find out why and how her son died in police custody.
• Marist poll (PDF): In hypothetical general election matchup with Obama, Ron Paul is tied. All the other GOP candidates would lose.
• Mississippi Supreme Court admonishes DA Forrest Allgood. (PDF)
• DEA has laundered millions of dollars from Mexican drug cartels. Hey, why not! It’s our policy that made them rich in the first place. Not to mention that we’re also arming them.
• Mitt Romney’s staff spent $100,000 in public funds to wipe out all email from his tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
• I did an interview yesterday with Wall Street Journal Radio about police militarization. You can listen here. My interview starts at about the 22 minute mark.
• New threat: drunken gummi bears.
• The Durbin Swipe Fee Amendment: the latest consumer protection measure that isn’t protecting consumers.
• How Rand Paul prevented World War III.

• Ice finger of death!
• Man falls off bicycle. Cop kills him.
• Red light camera vendor sues Knoxville, Tennessee for not issuing tickets when people turn right at a red light.
• The Pentagon’s $3 billion mercenary war on drugs.
• AFL-CIO, Teamsters, other unions firmly backing SOPA.
• All your fish are belong to government.
• A good reminder as the country goes into panic—and politicians go into “there oughtta be a law” mode—in response to Penn State: False allegations of sex abuse can also ruin lives.

Sigh.

The way the Justice Department wants to interpret a current law, lying on the Internet would amount to a crime.

Richard Downing, deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the Department of Justice, argued that in order to properly protect the country, the part of the CFAA that says a person must exceed their “authorized access” to break the law should include a violation of the terms of service.

This is how DOJ went after Lori Drew, the woman who used a MySpace account to pose as a teenage boy in order to torment a girl who was bullying her daughter. The girl later committed suicide, which led to calls for Drew’s prosecution, even though it wasn’t clear that she had committed any crime. The charges were tossed by a judge, so Congress and DOJ want to give prosecutors more power. But in the name of protecting intellectual property and national security.  Here’s how Downing put it in his testimony.

“These are just a few cases, but this tool is used routinely. The plain meaning of the term ‘exceeds authorized access,’ as used in the CFAA, prohibits insiders from using their otherwise legitimate access to a computer system to engage in improper and often malicious activities. We believe that Congress intended to criminalize such conduct, and we believe that deterring it continues to be important. Because of this, we are highly concerned about the effects of restricting the definition of ‘exceeds authorized access’ in the CFAA to disallow prosecutions based upon a violation of terms of service or similar contractual agreement with an employer or provider.”

The Volokh Conspriacy’s Orin Kerr also testified.

“In the Justice Department’s view, the CFAA criminalizes conduct as innocuous as using a fake name on Facebook or lying about your weight in an online dating profile. That situation is intolerable. Routine computer use should not be a crime. Any cybersecurity legislation that this Congress passes should reject the extraordinarily broad interpretations endorsed by the United States Department of Justice.”

I think we should just bar Congress from passing any law related to the Internet.

Pretty spot-on depiction of how the media responds to tragedy.

Truck Accident That Killed Rafters in Canyon Sparks Truck-Canyon-Rafter Reform Debate

• Bo Diddley’s son arrested for occupying plaza named after Bo Diddley.
• The New York Times delves into the new Beavis and Butthead.
• California bans foie gras.
• Jaw-dropper of the day: Texas DA opposes post-conviction DNA testing because an exoneration “overrides what a jury decided.”
• Stunning collection of old photos from Paris.
• Five myths about healthy eating.

• I for one am shocked to learn that governments around the world fear and want to rein in something beyond their control that gives power to citizens makes governments themselves more transparent and accountable.
• Something new to worry about.
• California makes it illegal to make circumcisions illegal.
• “This is an excellent example of the police and citizens working together.”
• Yet more problems for the Fullerton, California police department.
• Dick Cheney praises Obama, demands apology for suggesting they’re all that different. He probably has a point on the second part.
• What’s that? You’d like to see a photo of Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? And you’d like for them to be riding an elephant? Lemme see what I can do.

• The Bright Young People. A Tumblr blog of young, socialite, 1920s London.
• Banking customers angry over entirely predictable consequence of federal “consumer protection” legislation.
• Mark Draughn lays out the basics of that University of Wisconsin poster controversy. When a university statement begins with some language about the school’s commitment to free expression and the the First Amendment, you can bet what follows is inconsistent with free expression and the First Amendment. And when the statement ends with an assertion that the actions the statement is addressing aren’t censorship, it’s also a pretty safe bet that they are.
• When sending your kid to a better school is a crime.
• America’s most beautiful college campuses. Makes me miss Bloomington.
• Amazing photo of Yemenis praying in a billboard.
• Bear wanders into backyard where children are playing. Father kills bear. Father charged with felony.

MORE: The bear story is a bit dated. Via the comments, it looks like the bear shooter was fined $1,000. Also, the father was initially charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony, though it was punishable by up to a year in jail and a $50,000 fine.

• Mother Jones suggested that Charles Koch compared Barack Obama to Saddam Hussein. It’s pretty likely that he didn’t.
• Interesting photo from space of the India-Pakistin border.
• Federal court rules that a traffic stop does not justify forced entry into a home. You’d kind of hope we wouldn’t need court decisions to tell us that.
• “November Rain,” the comic book.
• I doubt these numbers will come as much of a shock to regular readers of this site. But they’re worth passing on.
• Mother of 22-year-old who drowned after getting drunk on Everclear wants a law to . . . I’m sure you can guess what comes next.
• “The Secret History of Guns”
• Travel guru Rick Steves talks to Reason.tv about legalizing pot. I used Steves’ guides pretty regularly for my vacation in May. Thought I detected a bit of a libertarian streak in them.

• In defense of tax havens.
• Attempted puppycide in D.C.
• Head of charity group says charity groups are exploiting Somali famine for donations.
• Arizona will charge visitors to see incarcerated family and friends.
• Libyan rebel “freedom fighters” turn wrath on dark-skinned people. Meanwhile, the rebels uncover documents showing that the CIA and MI-6 were working with Ghadaffi’s intelligence unit, including turning suspects over for torture. But remember. This was a great moral victory for America. Or at least that’s what ThinkProgress tells me.
• Roger Clemens goes back to court, judge scolds prosecutors.
• Colorado lawmakers can’t agree on limit for per se driving-while-high convictions. I guess the good news is that they’re at least trying to look at the science.
• Texas bans cockfighting paraphernalia, allows for arrests of people caught watching cockfights . . . but formally legalizes shooting pigs from helicopters.
• Mexican teacher’s Tweets about a school shooting, which turned out to be repeating false rumors, could get her 30 years in prison.

Murder victim’s mother blames “bath salts” drugs for her daughter’s death. New Jersey rushes to pass a ban on bath salts, names law after victim.

Now: Tests show accused killer had no bath salts in his system.

• Lawsuit: Man contends he was arrested for contempt for not standing on his leg. Which the arresting officer had just broken.
• Another arrest in Austin for providing free rides home from bars. And from the discussion of that post over at Reddit: “I am personally involved in the lobbying effort to keep these guys off the street and honestly the reason is simply to restrict competition.”
• Nice photo of a runway model.
• Good roundup of great journalism on the death penalty.
• Anonymous releases hacked emails from Texas police department. Disturbingness ensues.
• Dustup of the day: Cato’s Tad DeHaven vs. Lloyd Chapman, head of the American Small Business League.
• How U.S. companies profited from torture flights.

Stuff you should read that I don’t have time to write more about . . . .

• Another ignorant, ill-informed rant against libertarians. Good responses here and here. Lind’s rant is so riddled with errors, it both isn’t really worthy of a thorough response, and would take a book-length response to address them all.
• Bullying prevention as an unfunded mandate.
• Law enforcement and the “Holy Shit!” rule.
• Tim Carney has more on how Warren Buffet has benefited financially from the big government programs he supports. (Note: I don’t doubt that Buffet earnestly supports these programs and is sincere in his political beliefs, anyway. But free market people who get involved in politics and policy certainly don’t get the same benefit of the doubt.)
• Good question for libertarian discussion. At what point do claims like those made by homeopathy become fraud?
• California bill, among other things, would mandate breaks for babysitters.
• Controversial claim!: Americans should be free to sell things without a permit.
• Anti-abortion activist says cops beat him, arrested him, and accused him of terrorism for handing out pamphlets.

• From Germany, a story made for Pixar.
• Via Fark, your (unintentional) headline of the day.
• MSNBC and Fox have signed these two to become full-time commentators.
• Anyone looking for work?
• Dallas looks ripe for the next crime lab scandal.
• Columbia, Missouri police (along with the DEA) raid a man’s home because of “synthetic marijuana.” Less than 24 hours earlier, state law took effect making  the substance illegal.
• Another vague law named after a crime victim.

• Come on, you guys. You’re totally ruining my “brave weatherman in the hurricane” shot!
• The new rules of college sex.
• Judge blocks Missouri’s reactionary Facebook law. Note that this stinker passed the Missouri legislature unanimously.
• Prosecutor criminally charges 10-year-old boy who accidentally shot his sister because . . . it will help him get counseling.
• More good news: New Jersey Supreme Court orders overhaul of eyewitness ID process.
• Photos of an empty Grand Central Station.

• Touching video of two Louisiana men who became friends in prison, were both exonerated by DNA testing, now reuniting as free men.
• Related: Federal judge under fire for letting habeas petitions linger for years. One inmate died while waiting. The same judge was removed from another case after an appeals court questioned his impartiality.
• New Jersey cop assaults man recording him.
• National debt jumps $4 trillion under Obama.
• Mother Jones has assembled a database of U.S. terrorism informants and trials of suspected terrorists.
• Missouri teacher says new law banning online contact with students means she can’t communicate online with her own kids.
• Obama administration encourages health care providers to organize, then sues them for doing so.
• New Gallup poll: Hypothetical matchup puts unelectable Ron Paul within two points of Barack Obama.
• More problems for the Fullerton, California, police department.

(CORRECTION: Both Media Matters and Cato’s Dan Mitchell say the CBS article linked above gets it wrong: The 2009 fiscal year was set by the Bush administration, not Obama.)

Got them authoritarian local gub’mint blues:

A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down.

Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.

Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way.

“It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a struggle for me because I’m very independent, used to taking care of myself.”

She’s run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.

“It’s a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone,” she says.

In one day she lost her independence, her ability to work and earn an income that could pay for all those medical bills.

So she decided to sell what she owned. The sale was bringing in several hundred dollars each weekend until one neighbor complained and she got a visit from the city.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry. Rules are rules.’”

• Agitator guest blogger alum Alyona Minkovsky does a Q&A with Brian Lamb tonight on C-SPAN.
• LAPD officers allege ticket quotas.
• More laws named after dead people.
• Next in line for a bailout: the U.S. Postal Service.
• Ken at Popehat has been on a rampage lately—a delightfully entertaining rampage of truth, light, and goodness.
• DOJ files secret brief in wiretapping case that plaintiff’s attorneys aren’t permitted to see.
• Anonymous claims to have hacked 70 law enforcement websites, says big information dump is coming.
•  Up next: the higher education bubble.

• Puppycide in Birmingham, Michigan.
• Immigrant family says ICE agents raided the wrong house.
• There oughtta be a law.
• Looking at the effects of the Adam Walsh Act, five years later.
• The family of William Cooper, the Hampton, Virginia, man killed in a drug raid in June, plans to sue.
• It’s great that this officer was finally suspended, but there ought to also be some discipline for her colleagues who pulled over, suspected she had be drinking, but granted her “professional courtesy.”
• The return of violent rhetoric!
• Headline of the day.
• These drugs have soul.
• “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

• Man jailed for shingling his own roof.
• Woman threatened with fines, jail because her daughter saved an endangered woodpecker from being eaten by a cat.
• Allegedly extremist budget deal doesn’t actually cut government spending.
• Caylee Anthony’s useful idiots.
• Another successful government operation.
• “Child protection official” for the Catholic church caught with child porn.