Sunday, May 29, 2011

Gas Grills Are Un-American

(NEWSER) – Gas grilling isn’t just lazy: “It's nihilism in a tank, and it has to stop now,” writes Josh Ozersky in a passionate ode to charcoal grilling. His effusive Time column rhapsodizes about coal, elevating it to the level of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (“It shouldn't require an expensive appliance to grill. It should be equally within the reach of every American.”) while suggesting that gas grilling, on the other hand, justifies what the Communists said about Americans during the Cold War: That we’re “weak and lazy, … addicted to our own capitalist comforts, crippled by affluence and the soft life.”

“Why would someone spend over a thousand dollars … on a machine that does its primary function so badly? Because it's easier to light? Because it looks cool? Because they don't like the taste of wood and smoke and the perfume of hardwood fumes?” As we move from the cold darkness of winter into the spring and summer months, grilling becomes more than just a mode of cooking: It’s “an affirmation of our status as citizens of the land of plenty, free to eat and drink the sunny uplands of human freedom.” When we insist on using a gas grill, we give up “not just flavor, but also the whole feeling and joy and physical connection that a person gets to his food when cooking naturally,” he concludes. “To grill over wood is to be most fully human.”



Gas Grills Are Un-American - Josh Ozersky makes a case for charcoal

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Utah Law Makes It Illegal to Act Sexy - Mormons are outraged!


(NEWSER) – Be careful how you act in Utah: If you get too “sexy,” you could find yourself arrested under a new law. The law broadens the definition of solicitation—agreeing to trade sex for money—to include “lewd acts” that imply youwant to trade sex for money, like exposing or touching yourself. It was intended to help undercover law enforcement officers, who are sometimes asked by prostitutes to expose themselves in order to prove they’re not cops. Such requests are now illegal, the AP reports.
But two escort services are suing to halt the law, claiming that it could lead to the arrest of licensed employees, like strippers or escorts, who are acting sexy as part of their job. "Most girls who touch their breasts are not telling you they're open for sex," says the attorney representing the escort services, noting that a similar law was struck down as unconstitutional in 1988. He worries that under this law, police could hassle legal businesses and potentially arrest exotic dancers for “suggestively thrusting.”



Escorts: Utah Law Makes It Illegal to Act Sexy - They're suing to halt new law aimed at prostitutes

Archeologists Raise Blackbeard's Anchor - Pirate's Queen Anne's Revenge giving up its secrets

Arrrrrrrgggggg...


Archeologists Raise Blackbeard's Anchor - Pirate's Queen Anne's Revenge giving up its secrets

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Court asked to balance information age advances with constitutional protections - The Washington Post

Now this is a tough one folks, This involves a case where the law placed a GPS device on a suspect's car and tracked him for a month, eventually gathering enough evidence to convict him.

The US Court of appeals overturned his conviction, even though the Supreme Court has already ruled that a person has no expectation of privacy in public. The appeals court ruled that the police must obtain a warrant before placing such a device on someone's vehicle. Other appeals courts have ruled that the law does not need such a warrant. Solicitor General Neal Katyal is appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court.

While the court ruled that the 28-day tracking of Jones’s every movement in his Jeep was too much, saying “the whole of a person’s movements over the course of a month is not actually exposed to the public because the likelihood a stranger would observe all those movements . . . is essentially nil.”, I believe that the issue is not whether the police can track someone, as they can the old fashioned way, but whether they can legally "enter" a person's domain (car) and place a device without their permit. Courts have already ruled that a person's vehicle is just as much their domain as their home is, the police cannot search their car without their permission, or a warrant. The outside of a vehicle should be as protected as the inside, a vandal spray painting a fender is just as guilty of damaging property as the one spray painting the seats.

Read the article at:

Court asked to balance information age advances with constitutional protections - The Washington Post


That Weird Uncle