News & Media

Ars Technica reports: Bruce Schneier, the security expert who coined the term “security theater” to describe the Transportation Security Agency’s airport screening procedures, was uninvited from speaking on a Monday Congressional panel at the insistence of the TSA. (source)

For those of you who did not pick up on it already, yesterday’s post on Section 230 reforms was an April Fool’s Day prank – concocted by Eric Turkewitz. Read his deconstruction of it here.

If you read yesterday’s post, Judge rules, again, that blogger Crystal Cox is not a journalist. You know why? Because she ISN’T a journalist, it likely made you throw up in your mouth a bit. But, in a way, this nutcase is helping to prove why, when confronted with bad speech, the best cure is more speech. When she turned her attention to Kevin Padrick, there wasn’t much he could do about it except take the traditional road of filing a lawsuit. While that was successful, the damage was done — and seemingly couldn’t be undone. Other parties, who contacted me directly, told me of how they too had been victimized by her. Fortunately for her future victims, she decided

For those of you not familiar with the the Crystal Cox “bloggers are not journalists” case, it was a bit of a blogosphere kerfuffle when U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that Cox is not a journalist under the definition of Oregon’s Shield Law. A number of poorly-researched blog posts went up thereafter, with the blogosphere rallying behind her cause. After all, are bloggers not journalists? (Of course they are, but some are “not like us” says Simple Justice). Unfortunately, not very many bloggers/journalists did their homework the first time around. They were sloppy. They read the simple version “Oregon Judge Says Bloggers are not Journalists” and lost their minds to rally around the cause. Had this actually been the

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K-nknEIXa84] Disclaimer: I am trademark counsel to Ryca Motors. Super Brag: I am trademark counsel to Ryca Motors.

And so does Rogier Van Bakel over at Nobody’s Business. No sense in me writing about them when he covers every single base, here. Being greatly upset does not give you the higher moral ground. It does not earn you automatic respect. It’s exactly the opposite for me: Play the “I’m really upset” card as if it means anything — an attempted plea for sympathy usually made by hypocrites and weasels — and you will earn my enmity and scorn. Claiming that intemperate words can hurt just as much as bullets or blades is, after all, the same lame “argument” that religious crybabies of various stripes love making. Improbably enough, they believe that they somehow have the right not to

Ariel Kaminer, The New York Times’ “Ethicist” throws down the gauntlet at carnivores — challenging us to come up with an ethical argument for eating animals. [Carnivores say] they love meat or that meat is deeply ingrained in our habit or culture or cuisine or that it’s nutritious or that it’s just part of the natural order. Some of the more conscientious carnivores have devoted themselves to enhancing the lives of livestock, by improving what those animals eat, how they live and how they are killed. But few have tried to answer the fundamental ethical issue: Whether it is right to eat animals in the first place, at least when human survival is not at stake. So today we announce

Today is St. Joseph’s day. In Italy, they treat it like father’s day (naturally, as San Giuseppe is the patron saint of fatherhood). In my family, this day was another excuse to eat together. My sister tells me that during World War II, my Great-Grandmother made a deal with San Giuseppe that she would celebrate his day every year if all her boys came back safely. I think my sister mixed that up with the Mother of Grace Club, but all the boys came back nevertheless. I figured I would share the recipe for St. Joseph’s Day Beista (that’s Sicilian dialect for “Pasta”). Ingredients: 1 Cans of Chick Peas 1 Can of cannellini beans (although fava beans are more traditional)