I don't think so.

I bring this up because the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York has indicted Julian Heicklen, an activist who hands out jury nullification materials to potential jurors outside federal court in Manhattan.

Smarter people are already talking about the First Amendment issues. I want to talk about jury nullification from the perspective of someone who has tried criminal cases both as a defense lawyer and as a prosecutor.

Activists like Heicklen believe that jurors need to be taught about a right to vote their conscience rather than follow trial judges' instructions. I'm skeptical.

In my experience, jurors already do exactly what they want to do, and create justifications and rationalizations for doing so. Many jurors form their impression of how the case should come out during opening statements, and then implement their preference during deliberations.

The justifications and rationalizations are not always polished. Any trial lawyer who has ever interviewed jurors after a verdict will tell you that their explanations of their thought processes can range from inexplicable to bizarre to terrifying. And that's when you're talking to jurors who found in your favor.

This shouldn't be a surprise. People, in general, tend do to what they want to do and then rationalize their behavior. It's not our fault. Blame the way our brains are wired. There's no reason jury decision-making would be any different.

So: why do we believe that jurors need to be encouraged to do consciously what people already naturally do unconsciously? Is there a basis to believe that there is a large population of jurors who would refuse to follow laws that they find unjust, but scrupulously return verdicts they find unjust and unpalatable? I doubt it.

So I think that jury nullification advocates are offering people a rationalization for doing something that they are already doing just fine by themselves. Jurors are going to continue to acquit sympathetic defendants facing overwhelming evidence, and convict unsympathetic defendants based on weak evidence.

It's odd, though, that jury nullification advocates tend to present nullification as a bulwark against government tyranny. Nullification is tyranny-neutral. Ask anyone who has ever tried to convict a cop of using excessive force, or defend someone accused of "resisting arrest" or "assault on a police officer" in the course of being subjected to such excessive force. Nullification can lead to conviction as easily as it can lead to acquittal. Even were that not the case, acquittal is not inherently anti-tyranny. Tyrants, petty and great, can (rather occasionally) be put on trial, and their acquittal can be a blow for tyranny, not against it. Nullification is a mirror of juror prejudices, and plenty of jurors are prejudiced in favor of the state, in favor of "safety." That's why defense lawyers are not unanimous fans of nullification. If one side of the coin is jurors refusing to convict a marijuana user, the other side is white jurors refusing to convict a white defendant for killing a black man.

Yesterday I wrote a satirical piece mocking the loathsome, thuggish, and hysterical Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller, a professor who responded to a rather mildly negative book review with a criminal libel proceeding in French Court.

Last night I got the following email:

Dear Ken,

Finally someone who is able to see beyond the picture presented so far by the media.
Whatever the outcome, once I have the judgement, I will have it translated and send you a copy.

I am a French national.

Best regards

Karin

I Googled the address this email came from — calvolaw@netvision.net.il — and found that it has repeatedly been used by Dr. Michael Calvo, Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller's husband.

This raises several fascinating possibilities.

1. Someone who wishes to make one or both of the Doctors Calvo to look like morons has some minor skill with spoofing email addresses.

2. Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller may or may not use her husband's email address to email random obscure bloggers.

3. Dr. Michael Calvo may or may not be flitting about the internet posing as his wife for uncertain purposes.

4. Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller, and/or her husband Dr. Michael Calvo, might be too stupid to recognize satire, even the sort of broad, even-an-idiot-can-recognize-it satire for which I am known. This is consistent with them writing a poorly-reviewed book that is primarily made up of regurgitation of the statute and rules of the ICC, and the sense of dull-witted entitlement necessary to file criminal charges for being criticized.

5. Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller, and/or her husband Dr. Michael Calvo, might have a rudimentary sense of humor, and be pretending to take the satire at face value for comic effect. Though having a sense of humor, particularly at one's own expense, is a virtue, indulging that sense of humor rather than accepting responsibility for bad behavior is not. This possibility suggests that not only is Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller a censorious douche, she thinks it's amusing that people object to her being a censorious douche. That makes her a notable asshole, even in the realm of academia.

I suppose that by saying all of this, I, too, run the risk of being summoned by a French court, if Dr. Calvo-Goller files a criminal complaint against me in France. I don't have the free time or inclination to take Professor Weiler's approach of traveling to France to fight such a case. I suppose I'll have to avoid France. I had planned on visiting again some day, but I can make do without. There are plenty of people here who will sneer at my accent. We have home-grown censorious turds in America; I don't need to travel to Europe to observe them. There are plenty of people who are inexplicably superior locally. And certainly in America we have folks who are agitated about the intrusion of foreign languages, despite the prevalence of elements of their own language across the world. I can get overpriced and overrated food here served by oddly haughty waiters (here they're haughty because their screenplay is totally getting read at Paramount, but the principle is the same). And now we have people protesting over their swollen sense of entitlement to have taxpayers continue to pay their benefits without question. Why would I need to visit France?

Live your life skeptically.

I'm not telling you to abandon religion, or refuse to give your kids presents from Santa Claus, or disbelieve your mother when she says your special, or scoff when your wife says that bald, pudgy, aging men are sexy.

What I mean is this: when a guy with a heavy accent calls you from a toll-free number and says that the DEA has intercepted illicit prescription medication being sent to you and that they have a "bench warrant" and a search warrant for your home, exercise a bit of skepticism. When you return the guy's message by calling 866-978-7666 and hear a garbled, sub-literate outgoing message inviting you to leave your name and case number for an "officer" of the DEA to call you back, exercise a bit more skepticism. [Call that 866 number right now to hear what I mean. Edit: note that I transposed numbers in the original version of this post.]

Exercising skepticism doesn't mean ignoring it. Feel free to investigate — like by Googling the number — or even call a lawyer friend for advice. Just don't panic. Because the foreign scammers running this con count on you panicking. If you panic, you might give up information about your prescriptions, medical history, and accounts in an effort to convince the "DEA agent Ryan Collier" that you haven't done anything wrong. If you're really panicked, you might even bite when the scammer says that you might be able to settle the criminal charges by wiring money.

Exercise skepticism instead, and do a little digging. Googling the number the person is calling from might lead you to a post like this one, or to a telemarketing forum suggesting that the number is not, in fact, a DEA number. Note that scammers know about those forums as well, and sometimes use sock puppets to visit them to back up the scam:

Thanks to all the staff of the investigation unit Dept.Of the dea specially Sgt.Collier who was very friendly and professional about the hall investigation,They gave me a second chance and put on community service…………………..
Thank u Bryant
Att .Kristal smith

Pity Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller. She wrote a book about the International Criminal Court.

Progressive, decent people will recognize immediately that reaction to the book should not be governed by sexist, racist, classist, cis-gendered, Western-biased concepts like "scholarship" and "insight" and "accuracy" and "coherence." Rather, the reaction of forward-thinking people should be to celebrate Ms. Karin Calvo-Goller's differences in ability, qualifications, and narrative skill. Heartless Western Culture has judgmentally excluded different voices based on cruelly judgmental and archaic criteria; decent people understand that modern Academia is a way for everyone to participate in legal analysis no matter what their capacity.

But not everyone is progressive. Take Professor Joseph Weiler, a tenured member of the faculty of that bastion of Koch-dominated reactionary conservatism, NYU. Professor Weiler encountered Dr. Calvo-Golller's book. Did he read it in a modern humanist spirit, recognizing and celebrating its differences? No. He did not. Professor Weiler brutally assaulted poor Dr. Calvo-Goller's book by permitting a review of it in a publication he edited, the European Journal of International Law. By permitting that review, he subjected Dr. Cavlo-Goller's book to Western-biased, archaically linear, racist, sexist, "logic" and "critique." Decent people realize that such criticism is merely a rationale for suppressing non-traditional voices, like those of women, academics of extremely modest ability, faculty at obscure and fourth-rate institutions, and hobos, for instance. Progressive people realize that there is no place in Academia for phallocentric word-violence and thought-lynching like this:

. . . . she simply restates the contents of relevant parts of the ICC Statute and the Rules of Procedure . . . .
. . . This exercise in rehashing the existing legal set-up is particularly unproductive since a large part of the volume consists in a reprint of the ICC Statute and its Rules of Procedure and Evidence . . . .
. . . . her conceptual grasp of the “inquisitorial” systems seems insufficient for a critical analysis that might go beneath the surface . . . .
. . . .a characterization of the criminal process as an “effort to provide a trail [sic] procedure that balances between prosecution of indicted persons, the rights of the victims and the rights of the accused to a fair trial” (p. 217) hardly provides an adequate basis for a sophisticated discourse on the strengths and weaknesses of ICC procedure law. . . .

"[Sic]" is the rape-tool of the oppressor, by which Western thugs brutalize brave freedom fighters who reject patriarchal "spelling" and "grammar" and "diction." bell hooks defies you, thugs!

Professor Weiler's brutalization of Dr. Calvo-Goller's feelings is unacceptable to decent people. Modern Academia is about celebrating the feelings of its participants, not about subjecting them to Western linear analysis. Professor Weiler's hate crime could not stand. He attempted to make reparations by offering Dr. Calvo-Goller an opportunity to respond in the publication, but she righteously refused: "dialogue" and "exchange of ideas" are the tools of the oppressors.

But what could Dr. Calvo-Goller do? The crass, racist, patriarchy dominates the Western phallocentric courts and cultures. Dr. Calvo-Goller might have found solace in an institutional ovular on Western oppression, or perhaps a quarterly difference festival, but that's cold comfort. Where, in this unfair world where sexist, racist ideas like "freedom of expression," "proof," and "the marketplace of ideas" hold sway, could she seek legal redress for Professor Weiler printing a review publicly disagreeing with her work?

Vive La Belle France!

France has a long, proud record of recognizing the harm of psychological violence involving mean words, taking any necessary steps to protect human dignity from symbolic rudeness, and standing up against the racist, sexist Western concept of freedom of expression. Before that, France's legal system stood proud against other beliefs that the arrogant West attempted to impose on the world, such as the belief that Jews are entitled to the equal protection of the law.

Therefore, even though Dr. Karin Calvo-Goller is not French, her book was not published by a French company, Professor Weiler is not French, and his review was not published in a French publication, France's criminal justice system allowed Dr. Calvo-Goller to file a criminal libel complaint against Professor Weiler for his review, and conducted a criminal trial of Professor Weiler based on Dr. Calvo-Goller's complaint.

Miscreant Professor Weiler, and victim Dr. Calvo-Goller, await the French court's verdict next week. Will the French court stand up for the progressive proposition that, in Academia, special people like Dr. Calvo-Goller should be allowed to publish without being subjected to the hate-crime violence of criticism, questioning, or dissent? Or will the French court ignominiously drop its rifle of equality and wave the white flag labeled "freedom of expression" or "academic freedom" or "marketplace of ideas" or "Oh Christ, grow a thicker skin, you imbecilic, censorious jackass"?

Time will tell. But tremble, progressives — bastions like France, where the government will use the criminal courts to protect your hurt feelings, are fewer and farther between every day. Oh, it's just not fair!

Hat tip: Overlawyered.

[Edited to note that Prof. Weiler was in the dock because he edited the publication in which the review appeared, not because he wrote it.]

UPDATE: Maybe Dr. Calvo-Goller responds. Or maybe her husband. Maybe she takes this at face value. Maybe she doesn't. See here.

So last month I filed a Complaint against John Smith, a resident of Los Angeles California, for causing an automobile accident in North Carolina, on behalf of Big Insurance Company.  Big Insurance Company's policyholder was severely injured in the wreck, but  John Smith evidently believes that automotive liability insurance is optional in this state.

And today Smith sends an Answer, prepared by "A. Hertzberg", a Los Angeles County Notary Public #1908063, "Void where prohibited by law", which contains one of the worst babels of tax resister jargon, complaints that the state of California was not properly incorporated into the union, and seemingly random quotations from Black's Law Dictionary I've ever seen.

Postage for the Answer was twenty-one dollars. And he wants me to send him a copy of my driver's license, to prove that I, and no other AGENT FOR PRINCIPALS, received his Answer.

But strewn among the litter, I found this gem:

"There is NO EVIDENCE that John Smith, Defendant, is not a FICTION. And THEREFORE UNABLE TO OPERATE AN AUTOMOBILE. And Affiant BELIEVES that no such evidence exists."

Signed by John Smith, and A. Hertzberg, Los Angeles County Notary Public #1908063, "Void where prohibited by law".

Now, assume, for the purpose of this post, that what I've told you is true.

Your assignment is to examine the ontological and metaphysical questions raised by the assertion, "There is NO EVIDENCE that John Smith, Defendant, is not a FICTION. And THEREFORE UNABLE TO OPERATE AN AUTOMOBILE. And Affiant BELIEVES that no such evidence exists."

You will receive extra credit for doing so in a psychological framework.

Meaning Popehat.

I can't speak for any of the other authors (remember Brian, our resident Obamican? I don't either), but for myself I've been going through rather grueling work, combined with a worse-than-usual case of seasonal affective disorder, combined with a mid-life crisis, combined with a family medical situation that demands personal attention.  Although Popehat is a very fulfilling entertainment, my involvement here is a Thing Of Mood.

It'll get better.

Anyway, I did want to share three things, in no particular order:

John Scalzi's Old Man's War is coming to the silver screen. An entirely derivative tribute to the genius 1970s novel The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (which was itself a perverse love letter to Robert A. Heinlein), Old Man's War was still perhaps the most entertaining science fiction novel of the past decade.  Wolfgang Petersen, who directed Das Boot before going on to mediocre American movies, is at the helm.  Here's hoping Petersen has one great work left in him, because this story will make a dynamite movie in the right hands.

I've been playing a lot of Vindictus in my free time.  Emphasis on "free". Most free-to-play games illustrate the engineer's dictate "Fast, cheap, right: Pick any two."  They're either bug-filled nightmares, disguised spyware, or tedious grindfests.  You can play Vindictus in twenty minute sessions.  It's a mildly persistent world with fully persistent characters.  It combines depth of play with an action-packed interactive combat system.  It's fun as all get out, and it doesn't leave any unsightly residue on your hard drive.

But my Vindictus time may stall tomorrow, now that I'm getting my life back, and Rift is making its debut.  I've messed with the beta for Rift since December, and the game has grown on me.  Even in beta I found it more entertaining than World of Warcraft, and I think it has the depth to last me until Guild Wars 2 releases, sometime in the next century.

I'll have a full review of Rift, when I'm in the mood.

There aren't many genuinely free-form radio stations left in the country.  I have the good fortune to live in listening distance of two, but you're probably not so lucky.

If you're a music geek, I suggest that you tune in, NOW, to KUSF, which the way things are going is about to be one of the deceased freeform stations.  A nationwide simulcast / death watch is going on. Because the University of San Francisco kicked all of the students out and sold the license to a commercial broadcaster.  A shame. It was a great station, and a far better (and cheaper) investment of  someone's donations California's tax dollars than the $350,00 annual Los Angeles calligraphy budget, in that, you know, it actually trained engineers and radio voice talent, for approximately no money at all.

If you're a music geek cynic, you'll mourn. If you're an optimist, you'll listen and hope. Either way, go to this site and listen now. Trust me, it's better than the pap Clear Channel's offering.

If you can't find the simulcast on the KUSF site, google WXYC, WFMU, or WXDU, all of which are running it.

Like we've said before, "oh, think of the children" is a magic phrase around these parts. Uttering it excuses you, in our culture, from the surly bounds of logic and proportion.

Case in point: Radley Balko offers the story of Evan Daniel Emory of Michigan, who fancies himself a humorist. Emory videotaped himself singing a harmless song to schoolchildren. Then he doctored the video to make it appear that he was singing a profane song to children, and put it on the internet. As the preview to the video itself makes clear, no actual children were exposed to naughty words in the classroom.

But what does that matter? Just as it was once treason to imagine the death of the king, it's a terrible crime in our society to put children together with profanity or violence or sex, even only in our imaginations. So Emory, thanks to Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague, is charged with a felony.

Tague said Michigan law 'provides penalty' for those who actually manufacture child sexual abusive material "but also has a provision for those who make it appear that the children were actually abused."

Perhaps the children have some sort of civil cause of action against Tague for depicting them in a false light (as enjoying an obscene performance) or for misuse of their right of publicity. What's an eight-year-old's right of publicity worth? Tague ought not use unsuspecting schoolchildren as set dressing in his productions, and I don't care who set the example for him.

But charging him with a felony premised on the idea that he made it appear that children were abused? That suggests a frankly demented society. Movies are full of scary-ass kids — the Children of the Corn, that head-spinning puking chick in The Exorcist, and the entire oeuvre of MacCaulay Culkin. But if perfectly normal kids can drive adults into frenzies of witch-burning barbarism just by existing, then we really don't need horror-movie tropes to make kids scary, do we?

The most interesting reactions (assuming you find abnormal psychology interesting) to news of CBS correspondent Lara Logan's sexual assault at the hands of Egyptian hooligans have come from those one might think would wish her well, her fellow journalists.

One would be wrong.  Consider Nir Rosen, a correspondent for Time, Rolling Stone, and The Arlantic Monthly, who committed professional suicide last night on Twitter, "joking" (as he later explained when he realized that he'd gone too far) that Logan exaggerated or even staged her rape to get ratings:

lara logan had to outdo anderson [Cooper]. where was her buddy mccrystal?

it sort of depends who it happens to. sometimes we have to find the humor in small things.

jesus christ. at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should remember her role as a major war monger.

Rosen woke up yesterday morning a respected authority on the Middle East.  He woke up this morning with an appointment to see the administration at New York University, where he "offered" his "resignation" as a fellow in the Law and Security Studies program. He is now making amends with a curious apology:

A part of me was bothered by how celebrities, especially white ones, get so much attention, and before I realized it was a sexual assault I was sort of anticipating a return to the old theme about unleashed brown natives attacking a white woman. Another part of me was bothered by the knowledge that Arab victims would never get attention, that this would detract from everything else that was happening, and that most victims of sexual assault, whether in Egypt or the US will never get attention. These are not points a man has a right to make though, and nobody should try to take advantage of somebody else’s tragedy to make points anyway.

In other words, if a woman made Rosen's points that rape is a way of life for the victims of "unleashed brown natives," or whatever the fuck it is Rosen's trying to say as he keeps frantically digging himself deeper into a hole, that would be perfectly acceptable.

Nir Rosen, have I got the woman for you!  Meet our old friend Debbie Schlussel:

As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how “peaceful” Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart.  Still, it’s also a great reminder of just how “civilized” these “people” (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, “Bahai’im” [Animals]) are: …

So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that’s a hope that’s generally unanswered.

This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.

Now that’s all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”

Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah [praise allah].

This isn't the first time that Schlussel has played the "she was asking for it" card in rejoicing at the misfortunes of fellow, always female, journalists.  It seems Schlussel has a thing for damsels in distress.

But unlike Nir Rosen, Debbie sees no need to offer half-hearted apologies.

The reaction of the left to this article is funny in its predictability.Sooo damn predictable. Of course I don’t support “sexual assault” or violence against Lara Logan, and I said that nowhere here. RIF–Reading Is Fundamental. Your premature articulation is a problem. I did say that it warms my heart when reporters who openly deny that Islam is violent and constantly promote it get the same kinds of threats of violence I get every day from Muslims. Because now they know how it feels. They aren’t so dismissive of the threats when those threats are directed at them, instead of at us little people.

While the entire post is worth reading (again if you're into abnormal psychology) the "I'm one of the little people, who suffers violence every day" line is a new one to me.  To read her biography, you wouldn't know that Debbie Schlussel's a little person. She's one of the most important journalists in America.

Schlussel’s unique expertise on radical Islam/Islamic terrorism and a host of other issues make her a popular speaker and television and radio news talk show guest, both nationally & internationally. (Her online fan club is the Internet's second largest for a political personality–behind only Ann Coulter.) She is a University of Michigan graduate and holds both Law and MBA degrees from the University of Wisconsin.

As both an attorney and a frequent New York Post and Jerusalem Post columnist, Schlussel’s writings/commentary on radical Islam and her legal actions against radical Islamic parties have gotten a great deal of attention — and results. Columns she’s written in the New York Post and appearances she's made on “O’Reilly Factor” …

Schlussel, who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, French, and Russian, works closely with several Federal law enforcement agencies, consulting on fighting the domestic War on Terrorism, and has provided them with much useful information. She has gone undercover, infiltrating many Muslim organizations in the Detroit area (the heart of Islamic America), exposing their radical nature and support for terrorism.

I hear she's also a millionaire, who owns a mansion and a yacht.

Nir Rosen wimped out, "offering" his "resignation" which was regretfully accepted by NYU.  Debbie will never back down to the liberals.  If you agree with Debbie Schlussel that Lara Logan deserved to be raped, won't you show your support by visiting the website of the New York Post?  Won't you watch the O'Reilly Factor tonight?

Won't you note several sponsors or advertisers, and won't you write them letters or emails praising their support of Fox News contributor and New York Post correspondent Debbie Schlussel?

Won't you strike a blow for free speech?

Many thanks to reader Gary Smith, who has given us a new logo for the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center:

If you believe that the American government devotes entirely too much time and money to criminal sanctions for what is essentially a non-violent tort, please feel free to spread this image around.  To the extent that the government claims copyright or trade dress protection for its logo, this modification of the logo is fair use.

You are absolved.

Kudos to the graphic artist who designed the logo for the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center:

It was a perfect design.  The man or woman who designed this logo chose an eagle, to remind us of the federal government's authority.  But it's a rather … threatening eagle.  An almost obscenely threatening eagle.  Exactly the sort of eagle that government tech dweebs and lawyers who, to be honest, are third tier or why would they be working for a department whose mission is to seize fake Rolex watch sites?, need to see to pump up their deflated sense of self-worth.

I mean, fighter pilots don't use logos that threatening.  Bikers don't use logos that threatening.

Well, maybe the bikers do.

That image, to people who know what the letter "M" stands for (13th letter in the alphabet, got it tattooed on my biceps!), is so iconic that only a government tech dweeb or a lawyer so useless they put her in the agency that seizes websites selling fake Rolex watches (because fourth generation Kennedys have to work somewhere), wouldn't recognize its similarity to the NIPRCC logo.

All that's missing is the mouse:

Yes, whoever designed this logo was sending a big, fat LAST ACT OF DEFIANCE  to a government that's owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by The Man.  My hat is off.

And my hat will be off to YOU, Popehat reader who has talent with Photoshop, and I know we have some of you (I did this from a hospital waiting room with Microsoft Paint), who can add the mouse to the logo properly.

50,000 Quatloos to the Photoshop artist who forces the government to redesign this logo!

Hat-tip: indirectly to Instapundit.

Let me save you some time and embarrassment: ain't nobody wants to see you with your shirt off. Not on Capitol Hill, not on Craigslist, not on Gawker. Go have a few drinks and forget about it.

Look, I sympathize. Nobody wants to see me with my shirt off either. Last time I went to the beach people were checking me out for propeller scars.

Channel that energy into something else.

Hugs,

Ken

P.S. If you can't resist, and send shirtless pictures to a complete stranger over the internet, despite being married and a politician, then emulate Congressman Lee and resign within hours. Don't drag that shit out over multiple news cycles. That's just rough on your poor family.

Yesterday, Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio posted an expose on Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez's rape consensual sex with an underage a 17 year old.

So the story here is … an NFL quarterback had consensual sex? A woman had sex with an NFL quarterback? And this story is worth publishing because … the young woman very briefly thought it was a good idea to brag about it? Deadspin doesn't name the woman but they include all but her name. The NY Post steps in to connect the dots laid out so cheekily by Deadspin (her initials, hometown and a facebook screencap). Of course.

Deadspin is a site about sports but this story isn't within their jurisdiction. It isn't a story about Mark Sanchez. It isn't a story about the Jets. It is a story about how teenagers make decisions that they regret and about adults who take advantage of them.

The noteworthy adult in this story isn't Mark Sanchez; it is A.J. Daulerio.

What this is about more than anything else, it is that if you are a woman and willingly have sex, there is an asshole out there who will try to make you feel like shit about it.

You could say that E.K. asked for it when she dressed provocatively threatened to sue Deadspin to stop publication but that is just blaming the victim. Daulerio had already told her what he was going to do. And he told a 17 year old that she had to shut up and take it.

Like most people, I'm lazy.

As a result, I was always at most indifferently competent at math and science. Sure, I did well enough in high school to get into a good college. That's because they stuck me in the slow classes for math and science, I earned perhaps a 75%, and it got curved up to an A-. I escaped before it became clear that I was faking pre-calculus and chemistry, because they involved facts and skills and work, not self-expression. Then, at Stanford, I took the year-long three-unit "Physics for Poets" track to satisfy my math, biological science, and physics requirements. How does the Pythagorean Theorem make me feel? It makes me feel good. Watch me write a ten-page paper about that. I can dash out ten-page papers in my sleep; that's not work.

As a result of my laziness, I am willfully ignorant — practically innumerate and scientifically demi-literate. Thus, when I evaluate the scientific issues of the day — from global warming to evolution — I am, on some level, succumbing to an argument from authority. Which people spouting science I barely grasp, using methodology I can't follow past the Sunday-supplement level, do I believe?

As it happens, I find the evidence (as I understand it) of evolution to be very substantially more convincing than the criticisms levied against it. Similarly, I find the evidence of a global warming trend more convincing than the evidence and arguments to the contrary. The weight of consensus on one side or the other is one factor, though by no means a deciding factor. The whys and wherefores of that are far beyond the scope of this post.

This leads me to another sort of laziness, a type that I've tried (with mixed success) to avoid. Should "belief" in evolution and global warming (and particularly man-made global warming) be used as a quick and easy way to separate people whose views we should consider from those whose views we may safely ignore?

Some seem to think so. Take this post by DougJ at Balloon Juice, which suggests that one way to separate "reasonable conservative blogs" from the chaff is to ask their writers and commenters whether they believe in evolution or in a rise in the planet's temperature over the last 30 years. Jason Kuznicki at League of Ordinary Gentlemen bites, as does James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, and Will at League of Ordinary Gentlemen satirizes.

Though DougJ might not disqualify me from the ranks of reason based on my answers to his two questions, and I might agree with his own answers, I think the questions are carrying intellectually lazy and objectionable baggage, especially when coupled with an inquiry into whether other people are "reasonable" and their writing worth reading.

Here's the thing: people with unscientific, irrational, and foolish ideas about evolution and global warming might still have something worthwhile to say about other topics. Take, as one example, Senator Tom Coburn. Coburn doesn't believe in global warming. He also thinks that lesbian gangs were terrorizing Oklahoma's school bathrooms. But he's a been a vigorous critic of earmarks. He's right to attack earmarks, and no less right because he's a nut on other issues. If he's the lone voice in the wilderness on earmarks, and we refuse to engage his criticisms because they're coming from a lesbo-potty-phobic global warming denier, then we're being lazy and cowardly. On the other hand, there are plenty of people, and groups, that believe firmly in evolution and global warming, but can't be taken seriously as bastions of science or reliable political analysis. You won't find much creationism or global warming denying at the Huffington Post, but you will find it to be a cesspool of junk science and assorted twittery.

Honest people — people who care about issues, and not crass group identities — ought to resist the strong human drive to construct rationalizations for ignoring competing viewpoints. "We can safely ignore and marginalize any blog where most of the authors or commenters don't believe in evolution or global warming" is lazy tribalism, just as surely as "we can ignore any bloggers and blogs that don't support Sarah Palin" or "we can ignore any bloggers or blogs that don't oppose the War on Drugs." It's all a cheat, a form of shorthand — a quick way to separate, in our mind, people who belong from people who don't. It may unclutter your RSS feed, but you're not going to learn much that's new, you're not going to challenge yourself.

I read any number of blogs written by people who, if they noticed me, would conclude that I am evil, or a moron, or not worth consideration. I read PZ Myers, even though he would think me an idiot and a sheep for going to church, because I learn things from him. I read Balloon Juice, including the aforementioned DougJ, despite the din of simplistic sneers and jibes about "glibertarians," because I learn things from them, and because their criticisms help me test and question my views on issues. I'm not claiming to be a paragon of open-mindedness — I find some blogs and bloggers simply too insufferable to read. But that's usually not because they hold views I find to be wrong, or even ridiculous. It's usually because of the way they treat diverging opinions. And the fact that I'm willing to read and consider people who don't believe in evolution, or global warming, doesn't stop me from criticizing or even ridiculing them on those issues.

We're already inclined enough to focus on expression that congratulates us for our preconceptions. We don't need more excuses. Labels are and you-must-believe-this lists are excuses. Use them sparingly, if it all.

"I decided to compete in a contest premised on shallow, vapid, sexist douchebaggery, but after I won it, it turned out to involve different types of shallow, vapid, sexist douchebaggery than I had anticipated. It's not fair, and I want to sue. Please give me an injunction. And money."