Hello,

With everything going on in our country right now, my focus is making sure my kids are safe. I am a mama bear and I will do whatever it takes to keep my family out of harms way. With that being said, keeping everyone safe at every point of the day almost seems like an impossible feat.

I have a couple articles that are centered around protecting your home, and what to do if your city ever has to go under lock down like Boston did last week.

Would you be interested in taking a look at one of them?

Just let me know and I can send it on over for your review.

Best regards,

Lauren Rose

Lauren Rose
PR Coordinator
SocialMonsters
lauren@socialmonsters.org

Hello,

Hope your [sic] having a great day!

I recently sent over an email in regards to submitting a guest post to you for your approval. Did you get it? If not that is okay! Just let me know if you would like for me to send the article over for your review.

Cheers!

Lauren Rose
PR Coordinator
SocialMonsters
lauren@socialmonsters.org

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your follow-up email reminding me about this one.

I, too, am concerned about keeping my kids safe. I, too, am concerned about protecting my home.

There are threats out there, Laura. I shudder to think of them.

May I ask — are you able to provide a post about protection of family and home from . . . from the most dangerous threat of all?

Ken
www.popehat.com

Hi Ken,

Thanks for getting back to me. Like you, I shudder thinking about anything harm every coming to my children.

Below is a article that is centered around keeping your kids safe in the city. I think you will like it because it is centered around children and keeping them safe.

If you like it, feel free to post it, and then I have no problem creating another article for your site that will be centered around protecting your family and home from the most dangerous threat of them all.

"3 Solutions for Keeping Your Children Safe in the City"

Let me know what you think, and then we can go from there.

Kind regards,

Lauren Rose

Lauren Rose
PR Coordinator
SocialMonsters
lauren@socialmonsters.org

Lauren,

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Yes, indeed, the city is dangerous. But Lauren, there are some threats — some risks — some unspeakable hazards — that are particularly endemic to the suburbs, and the countryside, and the exurbs, and the wildernesses and remote fastnesses, that are not present in the city, in part due to space restrictions and in part due to statist and monstrous zoning restrictions. THANKS, OBAMA!

I refer . . . to ponies.

I'm sorry to just blurt it out like that, but our time is short.

What can you offer me about protecting home and hearth and child against ponies, Lauren?

I've asked others. I've asked again and again and again. I've asked travel guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/05/town-without-pony/) and personal injury lawyer guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/12/17/in-which-a-marketeer-throws-her-clients-under-the-pony/) and advertising spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/24/ponies-have-entered-the-popehat-ponies-have-entered-the-popehat/) and lawfirm guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/08/a-dialogue-with-a-guest-post-spammer/) and travel advertisement spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/05/somewhere-away-from-the-ponies/) and degree-mill guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/26/ponies-101-introduction-to-ponies/) and auto-insurance guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/06/28/your-pony-is-in-good-hands-with-popehat/) and generic guest post spammers (http://www.popehat.com/2012/03/13/like-spam-for-ponies/) and linkspammers (http://www.popehat.com/2011/10/08/just-as-well-im-pretty-sure-im-allergic-to-ponies-anyway/).

Nobody will help me, Lauren. Not one of them. Not one. No matter how much I beg.

Are spammers without mercy, Lauren? Is there something in the dark and pitiless heart of a spammer that WANTS my children to be victimized by ponies? Do you all HOPE to hear my little girl cry piteously "Daddy, daddy, the tiny little hooves, they hurt. Daddy, why does nobody in the online marketing industry care about my pain and terror?"

Tell me if you can, Lauren. My poor little daughter wants to know.

In hopelessness and equine despair,

Ken
www.popehat.com

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind," says John Donne.

But why stop there? Any man's (or woman's) fatigue or writer's block diminishes me as well.

Is anyone sparing any thought for the people furiously writing conspiracy theories about the federal prosecution of accused Boston Marathon terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Does anyone even care about the quality of home life of the people laboring to misinform their readers about federal criminal procedure and the contours of constitutional rights?

I care. I worry about whether Pat Dollard is spending enough time with his real and/or imagined family. I kvetch about whether Daniel Greenfield makes time to go to the dry cleaners and buy fresh tinfoil. I'm concerned that the folks at Jihad Watch haven't had time to pick up their prescriptions at RiteAid. I'm concerned that Megyn Kelly has had much less time to spend sneering incredulously at her loved ones. Is Paul Mirengoff eating right? And is John Yoo working out? You're only one person, John, and you can't applaud all the torture in the world all by yourself.

I can help.

I've made up some conspiracy theories and ominous observations about federal criminal procedure for you. Go home early! Catch a movie. Mow the lawn. Throw the ol' pigskin around with the kids. I've got this.

Continue Reading »

The following will likely bore most readers, as it's a family fight of sorts. Anyone who doesn't want to argue about the merits of Aunt Deb's lasagna versus those of Aunt Dorothy's is advised to move along. … and if you think Italian food is a pale excuse for the obviously superior Greek / Armenian / German / Nigerian food, this debate will be deeply uninteresting.

OK.

In the process of attacking a censorious tyrant ( a stance I entirely back Ken on), Ken wrote:

http://www.popehat.com

Chris Broussard is a dinosaur snarling at the oncoming asteroid. Even opposition to gay marriage is doomed in the long term.

Probably true, but "you're on the wrong side of history" was an argument-by-bigger-stick back when communism seemed to be ascendant, and it's not much better now. "May have been the losing side; still not convinced it was the wrong one." and all that.

If one cares about popularity, knowing how the mob votes is important.

If one cares about Truth, not only is the voice of the mob irrelevant, it's downright distracting.

Having a debate about Chris Boussard's beliefs might be interesting, but having a debate about how his beliefs stack up against the latest USAToday poll is not only uninteresting, it's a confusion of categories; it makes comparing apples to oranges seem like an exercise in sanity.

One heuristic I use when someone is making an argument is the presence of absence special pleading – stacking the deck, or outright removing certain cards from it and discarding them. Any politician who argues against gay marriage because it denigrates the sanctity of the sacrament – while on his second or third wife – should have his lips sewn shut before being tossed into the ocean (metaphorically, of course – I don't condone polluting oceans that way).

Conversely, if someone says something like "drugs are bad because they're addictive; I know from my own 20 year struggle with alcohol, where I rose up and fell down a dozen times", I may not be immediately convinced that we should continue the war on drugs, but I do respect the debater for putting evidence on the table, including evidence that does not flatter him and his self discipline.

So, by this heuristic, how does Broussard do?

Well he stands up for traditional Christian sexual morality – whatever you think of that – and was very clear that he considers premarital heterosexual sex to be sinful as well.

That itself is a wildly unpopular position. To use Ken's term, this isn't just snarling against the next asteroid; it's snarling against the one that already hit (and had a detrimental effect on the dinosaurs).

Broussard is not engaged in special pleading – he's declaring that 100% of the population is tempted by the category of sin he'd discussing, 99% have fallen into it, and he's explicitly leaving open the possibility that he himself is a sinner.

So far, so good. We need not be convinced by Broussard's stunning unpopular and uncontemporary stance, but we have, as yet, no reason to think that he's arguing in bad faith.

Ken wrote:

If they are angered by people like Jason Collins, Broussard and his ilk…

First, let me say that I'd like to ban the word "ilk" from debate by fair minded people. Technically, it merely means "type" or "group", but the connotation is clear – we never talk about "our wonderful mother and others of her ilk".

I cringe when I hear the word – especially from people that I agree with. Arguing for or against Obamacare / abortion / guns / pepperoni pizza is fine. Let's have a rational debate or three. But demonizing opponents shuts down the cerebellum processors and spurs the lizard hind-brain to action.

Ken continued:

…his ilk are destined for lives of increasingly marginalized bitterness and resentment.

I didn't detect any anger or bitterness in Broussard's explanation of his beliefs. They were calm and dispassionate. Far less angry, than, say, this:

Matthew 16:23

He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man."

Ken, and I, Broussard and 273 million Americans identify as Christians. A core theme in Christianity is the concept of the high path and the low, of God's law and the temptations of flesh, of sin and redemption. Coupled with this theme is the idea that that which is identified as sinful should be rejected. Jesus himself is quoted above berating the man who would later become the first pope.

Christians have been fighting about which fruit are forbidden and which are not since 30 AD, and will continue fighting about it until the end of time, but no matter where one draws various lines, the concept of forbidden actions is inextricable from Judeo Christian morality. Further, Christians are explicitly told to call attention to sinful behavior and correct it:

Proverbs 27:5-6

Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted

Ken says that Broussard is acting with "bitterness and resentment", but it's pretty clear to me that Ken is wrong, and Broussard is acting like a good Christian.

(side note: speaking as a Christian who is deep in sin – including several mortal ones – I'll say that it's a blessing to have better Christians than myself calling my attention to my deficiencies and reminding me that attonement is a good thing that has wonderful results. I'd rather be painfully prodded to do what I know is right than lied to by a brother and told that black is white.)

Now, perhaps Ken is right that homosexual relations / heterosexual relations outside of marriage / wearing white after Labor Day / mixing dairy and meat on the same plate is not sinful and Broussard is wrong on the matter of theology.

That does not make Broussard wrong to argue his point, and argue it in public (at least, not according to Christian doctrine; I acknowledge that according to Puritan New England Neo-Anglican SWPL doctrine, he's committing one of the worst offenses possible).

Jesus did not much care about unanimity and bowing to the popular opinion.

Matthew 10:34

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

I note that Ken didn't argue that Broussard's theological interpretations are wrong. He argued that they're unpopular. As someone who actively prefers to be out on the intellectual fringes than in the mainstream, I find it weird and suspiciously neurotypical that Ken considers that an insult, but no matter.

Let us look at Christian thoughts on intellectual marginalization:

Matthew 7:13-14

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

Oh, horrors. Please, Ken, don't let Broussard be marginalized – tell him what he has to believe and profess aloud in order to travel the broad road and pass through the wide gate!

Today, when Jason Collins became the first openly gay NBA player, some people were predictably annoyed. One of them was ESPN's Chris Broussard, a lout:

"I'm a Christian. I don't agree with homosexuality," Broussard said. "I think it's a sin, as I think all sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is.

"If you're openly living in unrepentant sin … that's walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ," he added.

Yeah, Jason Collins is really bringing down the high moral tone of the NBA.

Chris Broussard is a dinosaur snarling at the oncoming asteroid. Even opposition to gay marriage is doomed in the long term, let alone dwindling opposition to gays and lesbians living openly. If they are angered by people like Jason Collins, Broussard and his ilk are destined for lives of increasingly marginalized bitterness and resentment.

But that's not enough for some who think Chris Broussard's views should be suppressed by force of law. For instance, over at Pacific Standard, Nicholas Jackson uses Chris Broussard as an opportunity to call for censorship and be thoroughly wrong about free speech and the First Amendment. It's typical for people to react to obnoxious speech by waving their arms and proclaiming vaguely there oughta be a law; that's banal. Jackson distinguishes himself by asserting authority and then promoting disinformation about the law, all in the service of an argument that the law should prohibit Broussard's speech.

What authority, you might ask? Authority as a journalist:

It’s the blanket free speech argument. (And I know that argument well. As a wildly conservative—this is back in the jingo days before I came out, when I was using the near-lethal combination of pen and temper to shield my own personal insecurities—high school student, I wrote a number of columns for the student newspaper and regional publications in the Chicago area on this subject.) But the blanket free speech argument is a weak one. Any journalist knows that. After a basic media ethics class (the easy way) or a handful of frightening emails from a subject (the hard way), you’ll know a thing or two about libel and slander.

Jackson relies upon his journalist's experience to tell us that the Supreme Court has many restrictions on free speech, and has been cutting back on the First Amendment.

There’s also, of course, obscenity, child pornography, incitement, false or misleading advertising (all commercial speech is subject to limited protection), and speech owned by others (this is where trademarks and copyright issues come into play). Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has tightened the definition of free speech over and over again.

Therefore, Jackson suggests, the "fighting words" doctrine should just be expanded a bit to prohibit words like Broussards'.

Jackson's just flat-out wrong.

First, Jackson's censorious fantasies aside, the Supreme Court has been expanding free speech rights for a half-century, not "tightening" them. With very few context-specific exceptions — like speech at schools — the Supreme Court has used every opportunity to reject the argument that the First Amendment permits suppression of speech because it's "offensive." In doing so, the Court has relentlessly rejected attempts to expand — or even apply — the "fighting words" doctrine. The Court said it wasn't fighting words to wear a jacket with the words "Fuck the Draft." The Court Court held Jerry Falwell couldn't recover for the humiliation of a Hustler ad parody suggesting he lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse, "fighting words" doctrine or not. The Court overturned flag burning laws, rejecting the argument that flag-burning constitutes "fighting words." The Court found a broad hate speech law to be unconstitutional, noting that the "fighting words" doctrine could not be applied selectively to disfavored speech. And, as Jackson concedes, the Supreme Court rejected — by an 8 to 1 margin — the argument that Fred Phelps' douchebaggery constitutes "fighting words" just because it causes emotional pain.

Nor has the Court been willing to carve out new exceptions to the First Amendment. The Court refused to create a new First Amendment exception for lies about military credentials. It refused to create a new exception for depictions of animal abuse.

In short, the "fighting words" doctrine is dying. It's quite rare to see it used to justify censorship. What Nicholas Jackson is asking for is not the minor tweak to current doctrine that he suggests, but a wholesale reversal of fifty years of free speech precedent. Why does he think we should do that?

Now, as a 25-year-old, I appreciate those restrictions [on speech], because, frankly, I don’t want to listen to your bullshit.

Oh, Nicholas. Believe me when I understand that I get that right now. But it's not enough. My right to free speech depends on the free speech of people like Broussard. If you think that that's just a rhetorical flourish, let me remind you of Nicholas' own words:

After a couple of years in which we’ve seen dozens of studies—LGBT youth who are bullied are far more likely to consider and commit suicide; acceptance from family and friends minimizes risk—and a similar number of deaths, Broussard’s words, and the arguments by otherwise reasonable people that they should be protected by free speech, are no longer acceptable. They’re fighting words. [emphasis added]

Yes: not talking out of your ass when you discuss the First Amendment is now hate speech, according to Jackson.

Broussard's team is losing, or has lost. Their traditional argument — that homosexuality is evil, and dirty, and icky, and morally objectionable to decent people — is no longer palatable to most people, let alone convincing. Therefore their strategy has shifted. More and more, the public argument against gay marriage is not that it's morally wrong, but that expanding gay rights will necessarily lead to fewer rights for everyone else. We're told that recognizing the equal rights of gays and lesbians will lead to suppression of freedom of speech and religion.

I don't think that's a winning argument long-term. But people like Nicholas Jackson do their best to make it seem plausible.

Nicholas Jackson is a useful idiot for the anti-gay right.

Edited to add: My good friend Clark has a critique of my treatment of Broussard, and I have a partial response.

There are many rules governing sensible protection of your company's online reputation. The first is simple, if vague: to quote Wil Wheaton, don't be a dick.

If you've been a dick, there's no need to despair. Everybody has a bad day now and then, and the internet is basically a big old bag of dicks, so your dickery may quickly be forgotten. Redemption is within your reach.

Unless, that is, you double down, and triple down, and quadruple down.

"Doubling down" means that, when called out for being a dick, you retaliate by being even more of a dick. The infamous Charles Carreon doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down in his dispute with The Oatmeal and with a satirical blogger. Paul Christoforo doubled down. Craig Brittain of "Is Anybody Down?" doubled down. Ranaan Katz doubled down.

When you double, triple, and quadruple down on online dickery, you place yourself beyond easy reputational redemption, and instead face the full force of the Streisand Effect.

Illinois bus company Suburban Express learned this lesson over the past week. But even though they engaged in online dickery, and even though they doubled down, having caught a glimpse of the Streisand Effect, they are now retreating furiously from the precipice and avoiding the fatal triple- and quadruple-down. But has their change of strategy come soon enough?

Continue Reading »

In the wake of the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon and the identification, arrest, and charging of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I've been feeling very self-conscious. That's because lots of people are talking about federal criminal law and criminal procedure, subjects with which I am somewhat familiar. When they do, I ask myself: when I very frequently talk about things I haven't bothered to learn about, do I sound like that? God help me.

Today: nutty and deliberately ignorant conspiracy theories about Tsarnaev's first court appearance.

As I mentioned early in the week, Tsarnaev made his initial appearance from his hospital bed on April 22, 2013, the first court day after his arrest. At that hearing, United States Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler said this to him:

You have a right under the Constitution of the United States to remain silent. Any statement made by you may be used against you in court, and you have the right not to have your own words used against you.

In other words, Magistrate Judge Bowler informed Tsarnaev of his Fifth Amendment rights.

(The transcript suggests she did so incorrectly and confusingly — the last clause just isn't right unless you modify it to say "you have the right not to be compelled to say things against yourself," because the government certainly can use your words against you if those words aren't compelled. That may mean that the court reporter got it wrong, or that Judge Bowler had the sort of slip of the tongue any of us can have speaking extemporaneously.)

Judge Bowler reading Tsarnaev his rights has caused great consternation in some circles. It has been reported that he initially answered questions but stopped talking after read his rights. Outrageous! Critics want to know: why was he allowed to make a court appearance? Why did the judge read him his rights? More critically, what motive did the judge have to do so?

The jittery and uncombed are eager to rush in to answer that question.

First, I give you the one-vowel-short-of-aptly-named Pat Dollard, whose headline shrieks "SHOCK: JUDGE WHO ENDED INTERROGATION OF BOSTON BOMBER WITHOUT DOJ KNOWLEDGE LINKED TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD":

UPDATE: Judge Bowler lists herself as “a dedicated international traveler” on her bio in Business Week. Where does she travel to in such a dedicated fashion? Who does she see there, and what does she do, so regularly as to be self-described as “dedicated”. And, perhaps, “dedicated” to anything in particular? Did she take on a radical Muslim boyfriend in her travels?

International travel is, indeed, suspicious. An international travel is likely to encounter foreigners, some of whom are not even white.

Or take Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage Mag, who has this on "Boston Bomber Magistrate’s Middle Eastern Connections":

As FOX News reported and Robert Spencer noted, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stopped talking once he was prematurely read his Miranda rights. That helps the authorities establish the lone wolf narrative. Whatever else we might have learned from him is probably lost.

. . . .

While Islamic infiltration of our political system is well known, the infiltration of our legal system is less well known, but operates within similar parameters with foreign contacts being made. There is no way of knowing how much Bowler has been influenced by her connections with the legal and political systems of the Muslim world, but it is telling that her international judicial relations appear to begin and end with the Muslim world.

The very fact that there is no way to know how much Bowler was influenced by Muslims show exactly how shadowy and mysterious Muslims are!

Now, here's why these people are full of shit.

Magistrate Judge Bowler was required by federal law to tell Tsarnaev of his right to remain silent. Rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, governing initial appearances, says this:

(d) Procedure in a Felony Case.

(1) Advice. If the defendant is charged with a felony, the judge must inform the defendant of the following:

(A) the complaint against the defendant, and any affidavit filed with it;

(B) the defendant's right to retain counsel or to request that counsel be appointed if the defendant cannot obtain counsel;

(C) the circumstances, if any, under which the defendant may secure pretrial release;

(D) any right to a preliminary hearing; and

(E) the defendant's right not to make a statement, and that any statement made may be used against the defendant.

And how did Magistrate Judge Bowler wind up holding an initial appearance? The U.S. Attorney's Office — the federal prosecutors, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice — filed the criminal complaint on Sunday, April 21, 2013, initiating the criminal case. The docket for the case to date is here. Filing a complaint against a person in custody starts the federal criminal process moving, leading naturally to a first appearance. If the feds hadn't filed the complaint, there's no way Judge Bowler could have held a hearing with Tsarnaev without someone filing a habeas corpus petition. Judges can't initiate such federal criminal proceedings on their own.

The Patient Zero for this plague of derangement is Fox News' Megyn Kelly:.

The FBI filed a federal criminal complaint against the 19-year-old on Sunday, and federal District Court Judge Marianne Bowler [emphasis added] arrived at the hospital where he is being treated to preside over his initial hearing Monday, when she read him his Miranda rights.

[FBI officials told The Associated Press Wednesday that Tsarnaev acknowledged to investigators his role in the attacks before he was advised of his constitutional rights. He reportedly said he was only recently recruited by his brother to be part of the attack.]

But Fox News' sources say there was confusion about Bowler's timing, with some voicing concerns that investigators were not given enough time to question Dzhokhar under the "public safety exception" invoked by the Justice Department.

Someone with a saintly level of patience could probably teach prominent journalist Megyn Kelly the difference between a District Court Judge and a Magistrate Judge if she wanted to know for, say, the purpose of reporting accurately about the most important federal criminal case of the year. Maybe the same person could teach her how to use the Google to see which one Magistrate Judge Bowler is.

But Kelly is merely a carrier of the derangement. It is to her credit that she acknowledges being told that Rule 5 required Magistrate Judge Bowler to inform Tsarnaev of his rights — and that she acknowledges being told that the "Judge Bowler initiated the hearing too early" theory is bullshit.

Two officials with knowledge of the FBI briefing on Capitol Hill said the FBI was against stopping the investigators' questioning and was stunned that the judge, Justice Department prosecutors and public defenders showed up, feeling valuable intelligence may have been sacrificed as a result.

Yes, federal agents are often against application of the rule of law. But:

But Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd disputed the claims, saying that the suspect’s initial appearance was scheduled following the filing of the criminal complaint in a manner “consistent” with procedure – and that the agents were aware.

“The Rules of Criminal Procedure require the court to advise the defendant of his right to silence and his right to counsel during the initial appearance. The prosecutors and FBI agents in Boston were advised of the scheduled initial appearance in advance of its occurrence,” Boyd said.

A federal law enforcement official also told Fox News that the courts, not the Justice Department, made the decision on when and where to hold the hearing.

“The (FBI) agents and prosecutors were notified beforehand,” the official said, claiming those agents had already left the room when the judge came in.

So: some federal law enforcement official says that "the courts" made the decision when and where to hold the hearing. That is almost certainly literally true. But it's almost certain that first, the U.S. Attorney's office informed the court that they were ready for a hearing. Again, the feds initiate cases, and they initiate first appearances by showing up at court with someone in custody or asking the court to hold a hearing. Is it physically possible that Judge Bowler could, on her own initiative, scheduled a hearing after the feds initiated the case by filing the complaint? Yes. But it is an extraordinary claim, requiring some sort of evidence. Unnamed "federal law enforcement officials" are not known for their command of federal criminal procedure.

In short: the proposition that Judge Bowler was motivated by some sleeper-cell jihadist agenda to rush to inform Tsarnaev of his rights in order to shut him up is very stupid.

I recognize that federal criminal procedure is not common knowledge. But it's not hard to figure out either. I figured it out and I'm more than a little dim. A brief call to any first-year Deputy Federal Public Defender or Assistant United States Attorney, let alone any experienced federal criminal practitioner, would have cleared up these imbecilities.

But who wants to do actual research before accusing a judge of being a terrorist parisan? The wild-eyed people sniffing every falafel Judge Bowler ever ate are either (1) crazy (2) lazy (3) stupid or (4) dishonestly partisan, or some combination of those.

Update: A reaction from Pat Dollard:

Perhaps Pat Dollard is not able to understand the difference between an interrogation by law enforcement and an appearance in court. Or, more likely, he doesn't care.

Edited Again:

And in the category of "really ought to know better," consider Paul Mirengoff at Powerline:

I have never practiced criminal law (except briefly at the international level) and have not studied it since 1974. Thus, like most Americans, much of what I think I know about criminal procedure comes from watching television and movies.

My viewing experience does not include any instances in which a judge read a criminal defendant his or her Miranda warning in the middle of police interrogation. Thus, I was shocked to learn that this happened in the case of the surviving Tsarnaev terrorist.

. . . .

I can’t help but that suspect that it was the Obama administration that decided Tsarnaev should receive the Miranda warning. After all, wasn’t it the prosecutor who brought the judge to Tsarnaev’s hospital room in the first place? And isn’t it almost certain that the local prosecutor, an assistant U.S. attorney, acted on instructions from the higest level of the Justice Department? Line prosecutors don’t make decisions about how to treat terrorists in high profile cases when there is time to consult the DOJ.

The party line is that the magistrate judge made the decision to Mirandize the terrorist because she deemed her appearance in the hospital as constituting an appearance in court by Tsarnaev. This strkes me as ridiculous, unless the prosecutor characterized the event as the equivalent of a court appearance.

Although Mirengoff might be known for engaging his mouth without engaging his brain, he's not a moron, and not lazy: he's a well-qualified attorney. But his post amounts to saying "please congratulate me for refusing to research and for assuming criminal procedure works like I see on TV." Mirengoff is perfectly capable of researching the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and confirming that Rule 5 requires the judge to inform a defendant of their rights. Mirengoff attempt to evade the issue by asking why the judge would "deem her appearance in the hospital as constituting an appearance in court," and calling this ridiculous. It is Mirengoff's response that is both ridiculous and willfully ignorant. If the hearing held in the defendant's room wasn't an initial appearance, what the devil was it? It wasn't a probable cause hearing — the judge had already found probable cause by approving the complaint, and no further probable cause determination was necessary until either an indictment or preliminary hearing. It was run, in every respect, exactly like an initial appearance. Federal courts sometimes conduct initial appearances by video or in a hospital room when the circumstances require, as minimal research would have shown. It's very likely that the U.S. Attorney's Office pushed for an initial appearance in the hospital in order to ward off any future argument that the government failed to take Tsarnaev before the magistrate "without unreasonable delay" as required by Rule 5(1)(A).

If Meingoff is embarrassing, the loathsome and amoral torture-fetishist John Yoo is infuriating:

This is an outright violation of the separation of powers. It is not for federal judges, or worse yet their assistants, to rove around looking for criminal cases in which to act as law enforcement agents. The decision whether to read Miranda lies up to the executive branch.

Like Meingoff, John Yoo is neither stupid nor lazy nor unqualified to research legal issues. At the most charitable interpretation, neither wants to make even the most minimal inquiry about law and true facts when their gut reaction suits their partisan narrative. More likely, they are both deliberately dishonest people.

multiple print/radio/visual/digital sources 4/13 malreported ricin postal attack rectify

references perpetrator malidentified malreported rectify

malreporting "Paul Kevin Curtis" remove all references nonperson

replace correctreport "Everett Dutschke" alwaystrue rewrite

goodreport emphasize "martial arts instructor" eliminate malreport nonemphasize "Elvis impersonator"

federal law enforcement goodquote newreport emphasize words "discover" "investigation" "uncover" "reveal" "determine" "analysis" "dogged" "intensive"

doubleplusungood malreport avoid words "blunder" "mistaken" "innocent" "frame" "incorrect" "incompetent" "polyestered over-armed fuckwits" "put the 'special' in 'special agent'" "indifferent thugs"

media subsidiaries/partners emphasize goodquote "exclusive" "determined" "discovered" "revealed" "explain" "report to you"

doubleplusungood malreport avoid words "gullible" "credulous" "vapid" "coke-snorting upjumped typists" "amoral bootlicking sternographers" "jaded badgehumpers"

rectify correctreport "Everett Dutschke" has always been perpetrator "Paul Kevin Curtis" nonperson has never been perpetrator

INSTRUCTIONS END

The White House now has a Tumblr page.

And yet the President has not updated his MySpace profile since April 2011. America has gone two years and twenty-three days without a MySpace update.

What does the President know, and with which sleazy Los Angeles hair metal bands has he shared it?

We get letters.

This week we heard from a reader who, to protect her privacy, I'll refer to as Rapunzel. Rapunzel had a bad experience with a piece of jewelry she'd ordered from an online merchant. It seems that Rapunzel had ordered a necklace, which she expected to look like this:

What actually arrived looked like this:

But by the time this reached me, the necklace was not Rapunzel's problem. This is not a post about cheap cosmetic jewelry.

This is a post about baseless threats of suit to suppress a dissatisfied customer's speech, spurious allegations of crime, stalking, and  the most bone-headedly aggressive  customer service department on the entire world wide web.

"A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes." — Douglas Adams.

This is a post about alwaysinfashion.com, the "Online Store of Polish & Russian Amber and Murano Glass Jewelry," whatever that is.

Now ordinarily I would not lift a finger to assist someone who had purchased a trinket online and found its appearance … something less than what was advertised. I would politely commiserate, then point out that I charge more to make one telephone call than the trinket is worth.

To her credit, Rapunzel did not seek my assistance in getting a refund. She had dealt with that herself. After sending an inquiry, she found that the company's return terms (a refund only if the offending merchandise is shipped first-class mail to Italy, at the buyer's expense) were unsatisfactory, and advised the company that she would write a negative review of the product, and her experience with the company.

That's when things got weird. That's when Rapunzel received this email, from "sales" at alwaysinfashion.com:

Mrs. Rapunzel,

We are a reliable and well known company and people on the internet talk about Us very positively.

You have received the items that You have ordered and paid for, that is it.

Thousands of customers are happy for the quality of our products and for our professionalism and We must suppose that You agreed with them since You have decided to place on order from our company.

Be aware that You have threatened, tried to blackmail and accused our company of Scam with your e-mail. This something really serious and inacceptable therefore We will send a copy of your e-mail and all your data to our lawyers.

If You keep on with your defamations and write anything on blogs, forums or social networks, We will immediately start a lawsuit against You.

Sales Department
Alwaysinfashion.com (Emphasis in original)

This email brings several thoughts to mind.

First, it's good to know that Ignatius J. Reilly is alive and well, and working in customer service.

Second, the circular logic that leads alwaysinfashion.com to suppose that Rapunzel, a first time customer, "must have agreed" with the thousands of customers happy for the quality of its products and professionalism, before she ever received a product, is breathtaking.

Third, my co-blogger Ken has said, rightly, that vagueness is one of the hallmarks of a poor legal demand. When the threatening party cannot identify a specific defamatory statement, that's a sign of bullying and bluster. In this case, alwaysinfashion.com goes one better: The company threatened Rapunzel with litigation before she wrote a single word about its product.

Fourth, well, you'll see…

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." — Hunter S. Thompson.

After receiving alwaysinfashion's thug-missive, Rapunzel replied, stating she would communicate with the company no more, but asserting her right to express her honest opinion of the product, as well as the fact that alwaysinfashion had threatened to sue her, to others. I believe she has done so at this point.

Later this week, unsolicited, this popped into Rapunzel's in-box.

Mrs. Rapunzel,

These are the facts:

1)You placed an order of two Amber necklaces ATN002 (realized with irregular beads softly rounded in matte and cognac color) promptly shipped and delivered to You.

2)You liked so much Our Amber necklaces that You have tried to get another couple for free adducing unfounded reasons.

3)After Our denial, your opinion about Our products and Our company suddenly changed:  Our necklaces became “sub par” items and We became scammers.

Objectively if You feel yourself victim of a scam, the only logical thing to do is to ask for product return instructions and surely not to ask for other two pieces of the same item. You also asked for an expedited shipping since you:” really wanted to have this amber for the trip”.

Moreover your scam allegations are based on your personal idea that beads color is  an evidence of Amber quality. Please show Us your credentials as jewelry expert or send Us a copy of the  documentation that certify your statements.

Mrs. Rapunzel You can be sure that We will leave reviews and post on social networks about your blackmail and threatens and We surely inform about this matter all the companies You work for in Oklahoma [REDACTED BY PATRICK]

This is our last warning to You Mrs. Rapunzel: If You keep on with your defamations and write false reviews or lies on blogs, forums or social networks, We will immediately start a lawsuit against You.

This is our last e-mail and We assure You, Mrs. Rapunzel that the next communication will be sent from Our lawyers along to a claim for damages.

Sales Department

Alwaysinfashion.com

Believe it or not, there is a charitable interpretation of this email.

I will assume, charitably, that the mastermind behind alwaysinfashion.com's sales team learned English as a second language.

And one could assume, charitably, that alwaysinfashion's threat to "leave reviews and post on social networks about your blackmail and threatens" is a poorly phrased way of stating, "We will post detailed rebuttals of your online criticisms of our products."

If one were charitable.

I'm not charitable, because the following threat, to contact Rapunzel's employer concerning her "blackmail and threatens," showing that alwaysinfashion had gone so far as to google Rapunzel and name an employer, is extortion in the moral sense of the word if not the legal: a threat to accuse Rapunzel falsely of a crime, and to jeopardize her livelihood, all in order to suppress her speech.

"This aggression will not stand, Dude." — Walter Sobchak.

By this time Rapunzel had contacted Popehat. Where initially she had considered alwaysinfashion's threats to be bluster, that the company had taken the trouble to search her employment history, in a dispute over a cheap piece of jewelry, was so off-the-rails scary that she felt she needed help.

Yesterday I sent the following email to "sales" at alwaysinfashion.com:

Dear Sir or Ma'am.

I am writing to inquire whether a series of threatening emails sent to your customer Ms. Rapunzel concerning Ms. Rapunzel's request to return an amber necklace represent your company's typical customer service.

As I believe you are aware, Ms. Rapunzel recently purchased an amber necklace from your website. She was dissatisfied with the quality of the product. She asked to return the necklace for a full refund. When you informed that she would have to pay shipping costs to return the product at her own expense, Ms. Rapunzel advised she would mention that fact, and her overall dissatisfaction with the quality of your merchandise, in a review of the product.

In response, you sent Ms. Rapunzel an email which contained the following threat:

Be aware that You have threatened, tried to blackmail and accused our company of Scam with your e-mail. This something really serious and inacceptable therefore We will send a copy of your e-mail and all your data to our lawyers.If You keep on with your defamations and write anything on blogs, forums or social networks, We will immediately start a lawsuit against You.

Later this week, although Ms. Rapunzel had not contacted you in the meantime, you wrote her again, threatening to contact a former employer about this situation, and to "leave reviews and post on social networks about your blackmail and threatens."

I write for a weblog known as Popehat, which can be read at www.popehat.com. We write occasionally on legal issues, as well as free speech and threats to free speech. I am an attorney, as are several of my fellow writers. Although I do not represent Ms. Rapunzel as her attorney, I do find it troubling that you would threaten a lawsuit against Ms. Rapunzel simply for exercising her right to express her honest opinion.

I plan to write about this situation. Before I do so, I would like to offer you the opportunity to comment on the situation. If my understanding of the facts is incorrect, please let me know. I would also appreciate it if you could answer the following questions:

1) How has Ms. Rapunzel "blackmailed" your company? Has Ms. Rapunzel threatened or attempted any criminal action against you, as opposed to expressing her honest opinion of the product and what appears, to me as well, to be atrociously poor customer service?

2) Is it usual for alwaysinfashion.com to contact employers of customers who complain about the quality of its merchandise?

3) Is it usual for alwaysinfashion.com to threaten to accuse customers who complain about the quality of its merchandise of crimes on "social networks"?

4) Do you understand that, in the United States as in most free nations, Ms. Rapunzel has an absolute right to express honest opinions, and to write honest reviews, of products and of merchants such as alwaysinfashion.com?  If you do understand this, on what basis do you threaten to sue Ms. Rapunzel?

5) Are you familiar with the term "Streisand Effect"?

For your reference, here are some posts we've written in the past at Popehat about people and companies who baselessly threaten litigation against others who, like Ms. Rapunzel, are simply expressing the truth or honest opinion:

[snipped]

Finally, while I do not represent Ms. Rapunzel at this time, I am an attorney. Naturally I know many attorneys, in California (where your company appears to base its American operations) as well as in Ms. Rapunzel's state of Oklahoma, and around the nation. I do want you to know that in the event alwaysinfashion, or any of its affiliates, files a baseless lawsuit against Ms. Rapunzel for exercising her constitutional right to free speech, we will do everything in our power to see that Ms. Rapunzel is afforded counsel who will vigorously protect her rights, including, if necessary, filing motions for sanctions under appropriate state law to recover her attorney's fees and costs.

I look forward to your response.

Patrick at Popehat

I've sent that email multiple times, with and without links. As of today my emails have been returned as undeliverable or have not generated a response.

I can't say whether alwaysinfashion will follow through on its threats to sue Rapunzel, but that isn't the point. By promising a suit, and by promising to contact her employers, alwaysinfashion has already shown it's willing to use the chilling effect of threatened litigation (and worse) to silence her.

All that I can do at this point is to speak for her, and to encourage her to continue to speak. I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about jewelry, but even if I did, and I knew enough to say that alwaysinfashion sells the finest Baltic amber jewelry on the planet, I wouldn't use one of their necklaces to wring a chicken's neck.

Stupid defamation threats like those issued by alwaysinfashion, issued before an aggrieved customer even writes a review, threats of extrajudicial terror such as contacting employers, can and should be publicized far and wide. Alwaysinfashion's customers, and its potential customers, deserve to know that if they have a poor experience with the company and complain about it, they may receive the Rapunzel treatment: threatened litigation and threats to employment.

Caveat emptor.

UPDATE: ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

A representative of Always In Fashion has favored us with a reply.

But the reply raises more questions than it answers and, if possible, makes the company look worse.

A conservative neo-prohibitionist feels that the only way to convince his libertarian-leaning audience that even soft drugs like pot are bad is to – wait for it – "take a big rip off a bong filled with 'Master Kush'".

You can't make this stuff up.

Bottom line: the 21st century is weird.

ICK: You think it's getting too weird around here?

CHRIS: Absolutely.

JORDAN: I didn't notice.

MITCH: I like it.

I kind of like it too.

We've got fan art!

Over at Snarky Posters someone made some posters based on our security-theater-martial-law-and-a-tale-that-trumps-every-cop-and-donut-joke-youve-ever-heard post.

http://snarkyposters.blogspot.com/2013/04/runs-on-dunkin.html

Despite the lack of a cat mispelling English phrases, I still found these JPGs amusing.

I have been playing video games since Pong. I learned some rudiments of BASIC on the Commodore 2000 just to program incredibly rudimentary "games." I was video-game-obsessed. It was my main hobby. My father once barked at me "THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN PAC-MAN." (I said something very similar to my son on the streets of Seoul and could hear my father laughing in my head.) I enjoyed video games to the detriment of studies and social relationships.

But . . .

Now I am 43 and married with kids and a job and a mortgage and pick-ups at soccer practice every weeknight and soccer games every weekend and errands and making a gesture towards helping around the house and so forth.

Leaving aside games like Civilization V which I can "finish" by virtue of winning a scenario, I can't remember the last video game I "finished."

Now that time is a much rarer commodity than money, I buy games and barely start them, let alone finish them.

I frequently plan to take a serious shot at a game, only to drift off into idly surfing the internet, or watching Netflix.

Where I used to be intimately familiar with the leading games in my chosen genre (rpgs and Civ-style turn-based strategy), I haven't played most of the "big" games for years.

Increasingly when I look for games, I am looking less for graphics or gameplay, but for a feeling — the feeling games used to give me. That's why I often get the most pleasure not from big-budget heavily-promoted releases, but from obscure indies with 25-year-old graphics.

But my quest may be fruitless. There are many beautiful and innovative and genuinely artistic games coming out, some with improvements on classic gameplay. But it will never again be 1983. I will never again be playing Ultima III on my Apple IIe, windows open to let in a summer breeze smelling of honeysuckle and suntan oil, without a care or responsibility in the world, gasping as I found my way into the treasure trove in Devil's Gulch.

Screenshot courtesy of the fabulous CRPG Addict.

In the comments recently I did a brief bit of battle with the "government is just a word for all of us working together" shibboleth.

…which made me think of one of my favorite posts here at Popehat. Well, perhaps "favorite" is the wrong term.

Five years ago Patrick Non-White dusted off his Mark II outrage rifle , stuck in a large-capacity magazine of bile, and racked the slide.

I Dunno Mr. Mukasey, It Looks Like Punishment To Me.

I am on the record as hating most government.

Note that this is not because I think that most people serving in government are evil. I think that most people, in most cultures, and across most times, are more-or-less decent. The problem is best analyzed with systems theory, and best fixed with the same tool.

The government-run horror show that killed Castaneda wasn't because there were mustache-twirling villains; it happened because dozens of people were "just doing their jobs".

Every day Pakistani children are killed by US drones. On my best days I'll say that the folks in DC aren't evil baby killers, the staffers at the DoD aren't evil baby killers, the engineers at Boeing aren't evil baby killers, and the USAF drone pilots aren't evil baby killers. They're all just normal human beings doing their jobs…as part of a huge and grotesque machine that kills people.

Every day young adults are arrested for possession of minor amounts of pot, sent to jail, and gang raped. On my best days I'll say that this doesn't happen because the politicians writing anti-drug laws are in favor of anal rape, or because beat cops are in favor of anal rape, or because wardens are in favor of anal rape or because prison staff are in favor of anal rape. They're all just normal human beings doing their jobs…as part of a huge and grotesque machine that arrests people for possessing leaves of a plant and puts them in rape factories.

The list goes on and on.

Normal people are perfectly capable of being cogs in machines that engage in madness, if not evil. When pressed, these normal people tend to fall back on the phrase "just doing my job" and a hand-waving version of the just world logical fallacy.

Arguing that we shouldn't be outraged at government because "it's just us" is one of the worst lies we tell ourselves.

Frankenstein's monster was stitched together out of people like us. Nazi Germany was stitched together out of people like us. Mao's PRC was stitched together out of people like us.

And though it's not as bad, the US government is still pretty nasty, and it too is stitched together out of people like us.

There are a lot of reasons you're going to say I'm wrong. Most of them are covered here, but I'm interested in hearing any others.

As far as I've been able to tell through clever googling in my favorite search engine, the renowned and much beloved Pirate Resignation Letter was written by Chris Castle and delivered to James Bear (deceased), former managing partner of Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP.

After using the letter, Castle shared it with his friend, user "Otter Von Pop" of the (now defunct) BirdSunEye.com forum, and that user posted it on 17 October 2003 both as a forum post and as a Word doc attachment.

Later that morning, Chris Castle, posting as "The Bartender" confirmed the story and reported on the (first ever!) recipient's humorless (or brilliantly funny!) reply.

Harvested from the past and hosted right here on Popehat is that original forum thread:

Original Pirate Resignation Letter Thread

Enjoy this bit of net.history! And if you have anything to add about the people or circumstances, please share what you know in the comments.

via @copblock:

My favorite quote is in the post title, but I also enjoyed "Each time the SWAT team would rescue a family at the point of a gun" and "they would rush into a home in an armed line".

Thoughts?