All the way from Suffolk County, New York, I now present the newest trick for the legislature that has solved all other problems, the animal abuser registry: Suffolk County has officially become the first county in the nation to pass a bill to establish a public animal abuser registry. Authored by the legislature's majority leader, Jon Cooper, D-Lloyd Harbor, the … [Read more...] about Registration Folly
Rebuilding Windypundit
It's been a few years since I made any big design changes here at Windypundit, but I'm beginning to think it might be time for something different, and I'd like to ask for you, Gentle Reader, for some help. The impetus for this change is the release by Six Apart of a new major version of the Movable Type blogging engine that powers Windypundit. I tried upgrading to it … [Read more...] about Rebuilding Windypundit
Norm Pattis Fights Evil
So there I am, reading Norm Pattis's latest missive: The government has seized the life savings of a hard working couple whose son was growing marijuana in their basement. The feds also want to seize the couple's home. There is no evidence to suggest the couple was complicit in their child's activity. None. The pot was in a remote corner of the basement behind a wall. You … [Read more...] about Norm Pattis Fights Evil
The Cost of Murder
A team of researchers at Iowa State University has just published a paper that estimates the cost to society of several violent crimes. Led by Matt DeLisi, an associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice program, the team came up with the following numbers: Crime Social Cost2008 US$ Murder 17,252,656 Rape 448,532 Armed robbery 335,733 … [Read more...] about The Cost of Murder
More About That Graphic Sin
A couple of days ago, I posted about this silly graph, which shows the wage gap between men and women: The dotted gray line on the graph at first seems to show that "Women's Wages as a Percentage of Men's Wages" are dropping, but that turns out to be because the dotted gray line is plotted against the right-hand scale, which is printed upside down, with the larger … [Read more...] about More About That Graphic Sin