Tag: hit&run

This week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released an official recommendation that no one should ever eat raw cookie dough. Ever. Also, Christmas is canceled. And your puppy is dead went away to a farm.

Turns out, it’s not just the eggs that’ll get you with salmonella, it’s the E. coli in the flour. “The bottom line for you and your kids is don’t eat raw dough,” the FDA website declares. “And even though there are websites devoted to ‘flour crafts,’ don’t give your kids raw dough or baking mixes that contain flour to play with. Why? Flour, regardless of the brand, can contain bacteria that cause disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local officials, is investigating an outbreak of infections that illustrates the dangers of eating raw dough.”

“Outbreak” sounds bad, and 10 million pounds of flour were subject to a recall last year. In the end, though, the CDC reports that 38 people were sickened by the flour in a 2015 incident, only 10 of whom were hospitalized. No one died, as far as I can tell. As always, the delight and happiness of millions of children (and adults, let’s be honest) are not factored anywhere into the equation. 

Ben & Jerry’s spokesman Lindsay Bumps says that “food safety is a top priority for Ben & Jerry’s. In addition to a rigorous food safety program, the supplier of our cookie dough uses heat treated flour in the production of our cookie dough therefore there is no bacterial contamination. Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough is unaffected” by the 2015 recall or, presumably, the current panic. 

My prediction: Some time in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to easily buy (probably at Whole Foods) heat-treated flour explicitly for use in home baking and kid projects where the dough might be consumed. Entrepreneurs: I expect my cut when you make your first billion with this idea. I accept payment in raw cookie dough. 

As leaked earlier in the week, today Defense Secretary Ash Carter formally announced that the United States military is ending its blanket ban on transgender people serving in the forces.

As of today, transgender troops will no longer be discharged from the military or denied reenlistment “solely for being transgender individuals.” That use of “solely” as a modifier there is important because it’s an acknowledgement of both the pro and con arguments: There’s nothing inherent about being transgender that should disqualify someone for military service; but the totality of that person’s experience and their ability to adjust to both what’s going on within them and the military’s need for conformity requires analysis.

There are a whole bunch of “next steps” in the Department of Defense’s fact sheet about this transition. In three months, military handbooks will be updated to acknowledge transgender troops, medical “guidance” on transition care will be hammered out, and service members will be able to officially change their gender on their personnel records. More steps deal with the complexities of gender transitions will be rolled out over the next year.

Beyond that, it’s important to note that military does not appear to be buying into any sort of “gender is just a construct” or “gender fluidity” dynamic. Transgender troops will be expected to identify as male or female, just like everybody else. There’s nothing to suggest that there will be no new pronouns, nobody will be able to declare themselves “non-binary,” and nobody will be able to demand to be called “they.” A transgender person will be expected to live and conform with the appearance and guidelines of the gender they’ve become. This doesn’t necessarily mandate reassignment surgery but will require living as the chosen sex permanently.

USA Today notes that as part of the research before implementing these changes, the military did evaluate the likely impact on readiness as well as costs to the military to pay for medical treatment, based calculations of the number of likely transgender troops:

There are between 1,320 and 6,630 transgender troops in the active-duty force of 1.3 million, according to Agnes Schaefer, the lead author of a RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon on the issue. Of those troops, RAND estimates that between 30 and 140 would seek hormone treatment, and 25 to 130 would seek surgery. The estimated annual price tag: $2.4 million to $8.4 million, per year.

The effect on readiness to fight, or deploy, is anticipated to be small, Schaefer said. Transgender troops would be unavailable to deploy between 8 and 43 man years annually, a measure of military readiness. The military overall has 1.2 million man years. The Army has about 5,300 non-deployable man years.

“The bottom line is that we think it will be minimal,” Schaefer said of the effect on military readiness of lifting the ban.

For some context, America’s annual defense budget is around $600 billion.

A source gave Dominic Holden at BuzzFeed some indications of what some of these new policies might entail for transgender citizens who want to join the military. Much of the policy developments happening right now focus on transgender people already serving. Of note, if his info is accurate, an openly transgender person who wants to join the military may be expected to complete the transition before joining. There’s little foundation to suggest that transgender people will go running to join the military in order to get free treatment or that such behavior would be permitted.

On the other hand, if they did, is that any different than people who join the military for any other economic reason? How is that different from joining the military to pay for college? As long as they’re still expected to conform to military policy and perform up to the same standards as their nontransgender peers, there really shouldn’t be a problem. And if it turns out a transgender military member is emotionally or mentally unfit for service in other ways, that’s still no different from other men and women who end up washing out for being unable to adapt or conform.

• The Department of Defense officially announced today it was ending its blanket ban on transgender people serving openly in the military.
• Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that ex-offenders convicted of felonies in that state can be permanently stripped of their right to vote.
• Fears of an active shooter situation at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland turned out to be somebody being fooled by an active shooter drill.
• Japan’s Supreme Court has upheld the mass surveillance of Muslims living in the country.
• A federal judge has blocked a law in Indiana that forbid women from seeking abortions on the basis of a fetus’s genetic abnormalities.
• Republicans may allow a House vote on a bill to try to keep suspected terrorists from buying guns, but it will likely offer much more due process than what Democrats want.

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I’ve said before that it’s important to engage with your opponent’s strongest argument (as opposed to the one you find easiest to counter), which is why I was glad to hear from a liberal legal scholar at the Federalist Society last fall.

In the spirit of making life easier for those who don’t already agree with me, I wanted to share a beautifully articulated defense of religious liberty, natural rights, and the idea that just because something is “the law” doesn’t necessarily make it right. (That, by the way, is a fallacy people on both sides of the aisle have been known to succumb to—from conservatives who think immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally should always be treated as criminals to progressives who think Christian-owned pharmacies should be forced to stock the morning-after pill). Without further throat-clearing, I present for your consideration these excellent recent remarks from Becket Fund founder Seamus Hasson:

The Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1650s is the site of our story, and it features the Puritans at the time puzzling about what to do about these nasty Quakers that they had heard tell of. Before there were any Quakers in the Massachusetts Bay colony at all they decided to outlaw them. So they passed a law saying any Quaker that turned up in the colony was to be banished immediately, and if he returned, was to be flogged and then banished again.

Well, the Quakers had a very robust idea of conscience. In fact, it was even more than conscience. They claimed it to be the inner light of God’s presence in themselves and us all. And darned if the inner light didn’t tell the Quakers to come back. So the Quakers, being flogged and sent off, returned.

So in 1657 they passed another law saying that banished Quakers who were flogged and returned, for a first offense would have one of their ears cut off. For a second offense would have their other ears cut off. And for a third offense would have their tongues bored through with a hot iron. And they enforced this. We have the names and dates of people who lost their ears to this law in Massachusetts. But the inner light was a very stubborn thing and told them to return. And so earless, and with holes in their tongues, the Quakers returned to preach against this manifest injustice.

So the Massachusetts Bay colony passed another statute, saying that for a third offense the punishment was death. Now, Mary Dyer was a very free-spirited woman. She returned four times to the colony of Massachusetts Bay to preach against the Puritans there, not counting the two trips she took to New Haven to preach against the Puritans there as well. So on June 1 of 1660 she was solemnly, lawfully hanged on Boston Common for the crime of preaching in Massachusetts.

There’s the story. Here’s the question it poses: Why shouldn’t she die? After all, she had notices of the law. She willingly broke the law. She was duly arrested, properly tried, and properly hanged. What’s wrong with that?
That’s a monstrous question, of course. You can’t kill people for preaching in Massachusetts. But the question is, why can’t you? It wasn’t illegal; it was legally required. It wasn’t unconstitutional; there wasn’t a Constitution yet.

While you’re pondering that, an even briefer story: Vermont in 1870, in its Constitution, provisioned that all office holders had to hold and preach the Protestant religion, thereby excluding Catholics and Jews. There’s the brief story. Here’s the brief question: If the law requires you to be anti-Semitic, may you be? To repeat, this wasn’t illegal. This was legally required. And it wasn’t unconstitutional, because although there was a Constitution, it didn’t apply to the states in 1870. So the question is, if the law requires you to be anti-Semitic, may you be?

And the third story takes place in the 19[9]0s in China, where a 6-year-old boy named Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was arrested, and if he’s still alive is still being held today, for the crime of being thought by others to be the Panchen Lama’s reincarnation. Every time the State Department says to China, “This is an outrage. Release the little boy,” China responds the same way: “You’re interfering in our internal affairs. Get lost.”

Here’s the question: Why aren’t they right? Why isn’t the question of whether you can arrest and imprison a 6-year-old boy for the religious beliefs of others—why isn’t that just a question of Chinese law?

All three of those questions posed are different versions of the same master question: Where does religious liberty come from? If you think that religious liberty comes from the Constitution—not that the Constitution codifies religious liberty, but that it actually comes from the Constitution in the first place—then you must think that Mary Dyer was properly executed, that in 1970 anti-Semitism was OK, and that the Chinese are right. Because in none of those cases was there a Constitution that applied.

To skip ahead, if you don’t think that Mary Dyer was properly executed, and if you think that anti-Semitism is always and everywhere illegal, and if you think the Chinese are wrong, then you must think, along with Madison [and others], that religious liberty has a foundation elsewhere, prior to and higher than the Constitution.

Hasson’s comments were part of an event last week at the American Enterprise Institute called “Catholic thought and human flourishing: Culture and policy.” You can see video of the whole thing here.

Last week I appeared on Fox Business Network’s Stossel to talk about Hillary Clinton’s long, terrible record on free speech. Here is a briefish excerpt from that appearance:

And last night I was on the Fox News program Red Eye w/ Tom Shillue, talking about any number of silly things, but among them (from the 7:30 mark) the awfulness of watching Hillary Clinton pander to a crowd of social media kids who are almost certainly clueless about what an anti-constitutional buzzkill she is about the technology and free expression:

If you have been to a concert in recent years, chances are you likely noticed the abundance of people capturing the event on their smartphones. It has become a common practice for fans who want to enjoy their favorite artists later on to record some or all of their performances, yet both artists and audience members have found this trend annoying.

Apple is seeking to address the issue, but not by encouraging iPhone users to keep their devices in their pockets; instead, the company has been working on technology to prevent cameras from being useable under certain circumstances.

The tech giant was granted a patent for a new device that, through infrared signals, can block people from using their iPhone’s camera to take photographs or video. If the camera app is opened, the phone’s screen, according to one of the patent’s drawings, would feature the text “RECORDING DISABLED.”

This walks a fine line between addressing consumer wants and limiting speech. From a concert attendee’s perspective, cellphone use at concerts can be irritating. Rather than enjoying the performance, people are often distracted by bright phone screens and blocked views, thanks to self-absorbed smartphone users.

One can wonder if the problem warrants such a dramatic interference in individual rights. Clearly, property owners should not be legally barred from using such technology in private venues if the technology exists and they so choose. Yet Apple’s decision to develop a product that essentially tells people when it is and isn’t acceptable to use their iPhones seems to go against the ideals of free speech. And while concert bootlegging still exists in the digital age, it’s hard to imagine people’s shaky personal footage is really a significant financial threat to the music industry.

It’s possible that customers will be displeased by Apple’s decision to move forward with this product. But as with so many technologies, there are more potential uses for it than initially meet the eye: According to the patent application, it could even be used to send information on an exhibit to people who open their iPhone cameras inside the museum. Some attractions already use QR barcodes for a similar purpose, but Apple’s product looks poised to make the process of delivering information to people even easier.

“We are in an extremely individualistic age of fashion,” explains Michelle Finamore, curator of Fashion Arts at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and co-curator of the current exhibit, #Techstyle. The exhibit showcases and celebrates the fusion of contemporary fashion and technology, a relationship Finamore believes will produce an explosion of personal expression through customization.

Watch above or click the link below for full text, links, downloadable versions and more. 

View this article.

Does a university education really prepare students to succeed in the workplace? The testimony of one recent undergraduate, who was fired from his internship after fomenting organized opposition to the company’s dress code, should give pause.

The anonymous millennial wrote to advice blogger Alison Greene for guidance. (I am presuming he is male, based on his specific complaints about the dress code—wearing a suit, for example.) He said that he felt “the dress code was overly strict,” but wasn’t going to complain until his sense of injustice was triggered:

“I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.

I spoke with my manager about being allowed some leeway under the dress code and was told this was not possible, despite the other person being allowed to do it. I soon found out that many of the other interns felt the same way, and the ones who asked their managers about it were told the same thing as me.”

The intern decided his best course of action was to create a petition requesting a relaxation of the dress code. “It was mostly about the footwear, but we also incorporated a request that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code,” he wrote. Most of the other interns signed it.

Needless to say, management did not take kindly to the petition. The interns who signed it were called into a meeting and fired en masse. It turned out the worker who had been excused from following the dress code was a veteran who had lost his leg and was permitted to wear whatever footwear was most comfortable.

The fired intern writes that he was “shocked”:

The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school, and our arguments were thought out and well-reasoned. We weren’t even given a chance to discuss it.

I have never had a job before (I’ve always focused on school) and I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year. I feel my dismissal was unfair and would like to ask them to reconsider but I’m not sure the best way to go about it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t want to make too much of a single anecdote—it doesn’t actually tell us whether millennial workers are more likely than other workers to act entitled. But the intern’s justification of his actions is illustrative. This is what he learned in school: if you don’t like your company’s policies, create a petition or organize against management. As if that’s how professional people in the private sector handle disagreements.

Perhaps an education in social justice activism is not as valuable as university planners want their students to believe it is.

It’s also quite funny that these socially conscious interns didn’t immediately recognize the one actually marginalized person in the situation: the disabled veteran.

The real story of the Benghazi report is about interventionism.

Bonnie Kristian writes:

The real story of the 800-page report that is the result of the Select Committee on Benghazi’s months of investigation is not about what Hillary Clinton knew and when—though, to be sure, the inquiry presents criticisms worth serious consideration given their subject’s perpetual touting of her foreign policy record.

Nor is the story found in the document’s headlining revelations, like the fact that it was loyalists to the autocratic Qaddafi regime (yes, the very regime U.S. intervention aimed to overthrow) who were instrumental in saving American lives during 2012’s embassy attack. Nor is it the disclosure that the CIA did not know about these pro-Qaddafi fighters until after their involvement, or that the intelligence agency copped to multiple other serious errors. Nor yet is it the report’s allegation that forces within the Clinton State Department and the Obama administration more generally acted to impede transparency as the scandal around Benghazi grew.

No, the real story here is not specific to the Benghazi incident at all—or nearly so polarizing along partisan lines. It is rather found in the bigger picture of bipartisan military intervention, which in Libya produced yet another a reckless war of choice, a boondoggle which did nothing to protect U.S. interests, limit the spread of terrorism, or promote democracy (or even stability) in the greater Mideast.

View this article.

The Turkish government says it has compelling evidence that the terrorist attack on the Istanbul international airport was organized by the Islamic State (ISIS). An anonymous source within the Turkish government claims the three men involved in the attack were from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan and entered the country from Syria last month, along with the suicide vests and bombs they used in the attack. The death toll in the attack is up to 43 after a three-year-old Palestinian boy injured in the attack died. Turkish police made at least 13 arrests while raiding locations all across Istanbul after the attack.

President Obama also appeared to suggest the attack was organized by ISIS, which has been fingered by Turkey but has not yet claimed responsibility. At the North American Leaders’ Summit yesterday, Obama argued the attack showed ISIS was doing poorly. “It’s an indication of how little these vicious organizations have to offer,” Obama said. “Beyond killing innocents, they are continuing losing ground, unable to govern those areas that they have taken over.”

Obama predicted ISIS would be defeated. “They’re going to be defeated in Syria, they’re going to be defeated in Iraq,” he said. “They are going to be on the run wherever they hide. And we will not rest until we have dismantled these networks of hate that have an impact on the entire civilized world.” CIA Director John Brennan, meanwhile, said he believes ISIS would continue to try to penetrate America’s defenses and they they had not been successful because of homeland security and intelligence measures.

Travelers over the fourth of July weekend can expect an extra dose of security theater if they’re going ot the airport.