Windy city indeed

The city of Chicago now considers things like looking at a map or taking notes suspect activity. (via BoingBoing).

If nothing else, that should do good for giving the cops "reason" to arrest tourists. Because people never use maps and cameras for benign reasons, not in a big city.

Oh god no....

I'm writing a paper on Romer v. Evans, a Supreme Court case that struck down an anti-anti-discrimination measure (Colorado: "No, you can't offer special protection to homosexuals" Supreme Court: "Yes, you can."). Scalia wrote a dissent, which is basically a big heap of homophobia, smothered in idiocy and a slipper-slope argument.

My mind started to wander a bit as I reread his bit about how "Someone who admits a tendency to want to engage in sodomy, which is illegal (though actually not in CO, but that doesn't matter because he's not saying if they do it, just if they want to) obviously shouldn't be afforded any special favors." My mind starts scoffing at that, in my Godless Liberal Way: Oh, what, and Scalia never in his life received a blowjob?

Then I realized Oh god, I'm thinking about Antonin Scalia's sex life.

*shudder*

OK.

Turns out in order to get my debit card to work in the ATM on campus I need to turn it so the magnetic strip is facing the wrong way and not really swipe it but very very very slowly drag it through the appropriate slot.

Do I understand? No, but I successfully got money, so it's all good.

Things that really aren't terribly fun

Ordering food to be delivered, then going to the ATM and having a moment of panic when, upon swiping your card, the ATM says your card cannot be used. Proceed to feel panicked until you think to try another debit card from another bank, which (besides charging you a ridiculous fee) will work fine.

For bonus anti-fun, then call the 800 number on the back of your card to see why they won't let you access your money, and be told they really don't know and the only department that might be able to help is closed for the weekend.

I don't like Mitt Romney

It’s not that I particularly liked Mitt Romney before (amongst other reasons: he’s a Republican), but I know can freely say I really despise him. He just gave a speech focusing on the fact that he’s a member of a religion that is A) not mainstream, B) considered by some to be a bit crazy and C) considered by some to be a cult. Here’s my favorite bit:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

…

…

…

Yeah. There’s also this:

Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government.

Again…yeah. And this:

And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion -- rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith.

I wonder if that includes me, a solid atheist who believes absolutely in absolute freedom of religion but does indeed believe that includes freedom from religion? I won’t decry your faith as any better or worse than anyone else’s, and I won’t tell you you’re wrong or to change your beliefs. Will you extend the same courtesy to me?

I admit I don’t always do that: I’m a hypocrite, just as any other human. We’re all innately flawed. I write off religion as a ridiculous. Religiously minded people write off atheism as ridiculous. So be it: finding people who don’t do so is as impossible as finding a truly unbiased journalist. But all I ask is that we leave it there. You have your personal beliefs and I have mine. We disagree. That’s fine. But I’d like very much to stop being overlooked entirely as an American on account of my beliefs or lack thereof. Americans are mostly but not entirely religious, something I’m afraid is more and more often willfully forgotten.

Also, here’s an interesting piece on the first quote from the speech. It doesn’t say much but there’s really not much that needs to be said about it: Romney has made his stance pretty damn clear.

Surprisingly, doctors are proven to not be angels.

In a great display of the investigative spirit, a survey of doctors has revealed them to be often dishonest people who are first and foremost out to make a buck.

_A third of surveyed doctors said they would order an unnecessary and expensive MRI scan just to get rid of a complaining patient.

_A quarter said they would refer patients to an imaging center in which they had a financial interest without revealing the conflict of interest, which could violate certain laws.

But it's OK, because of the doctors who responded, 28% of their patients are on Medicaid or uninsured.

Please do not the inherent flaw in this as a self-reporting survey: only about half the doctors returned the questionnaire, and obviously, someone who is extremely unethical is either not going to answer, or going to lie.

Paging Due Process...Due Process to Philadelphia, please

Ramsey said he and Nutter were in agreement on Nutter's crime-fighting strategy, including Nutter's promise to employ a controversial "stop, question and frisk" policy to target illegal weapons.

Though outgoing Commissioner Johnson has warned that Nutter's stop-and-frisk strategy could risk "disaster" by alienating the public, Ramsey said the aggressive tactic was a "valuable tool" as long as it was conducted within the law.

"You need reasonable suspicion in order to stop them," Ramsey said in an interview the day his selection was announced. "There's a way in which you interact with people - you don't want to alienate folks by being rude and abusive. Usually when people get stopped by policemen, what they complain about is not the initial stop, they complain about they way they were treated and disrespected by the police officers." (link)

No, what makes people feel alienated is the arbitrary revocation of their constitutional rights, dumbass.

As much as I wish it were, owning a gun is not illegal. Therefore, even if Officer Joe Incompetent, star of the Philadelphia Police, sees someone who he thinks is carrying a gun, there's no probable cause to stop them. If Officer Joe sees someone who he thinks is carrying a gun, and matches the description of someone who was recently involved in a shooting, then sure, stop him. But unless there's that probable cause, the police have absolutely no right to stop you.