Dept. of Currency: Penny Dreadful

In November, 1989, Representatives James A. Hayes, of Louisiana, and Jim Kolbe, of Arizona, having had just about enough of all this, introduced the Price Rounding Act. Its purpose was to phase out the penny by requiring that all cash transactions be rounded to the nearest five cents. The bill was actively opposed by Americans for Common Cents, a lobbying organization that had been founded specifically to defeat the legislation. A.C.C.'s main funding came from Jarden Zinc Products, which is one of the nation's largest producers of zinc, and which has supplied the U.S. Mint with penny planchets since 1982. [...]

Coinstar charges most of its customers 8.9 per cent of any amount they feed into a machine. The fact that consumers happily pay this considerable fee suggests that they wouldn't be bothered by the vastly smaller penalty that rounding to the nearest nickel might entail. Of course, eliminating cents would also eliminate the middleman -- in this case Coinstar, which annually processes about forty billion coins, more than half of which are pennies. Not surprisingly, therefore, Coinstar has been an advocate of preserving pennies. Since 1998, the company has conducted an annual currency poll, which always shows that Americans still love pennies and would prefer to continue getting rid of them by collecting them for months or years and then paying Coinstar to put them back into circulation, instead of getting rid of them once and for all by having the Mint stop making them.

See also The Megapenny Project.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy her one (or a hundred) of those wheelchairs that can climb stairs?

Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million?

Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president's perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick [...] asked that the board take some more time to come up with an alternative, like maybe just getting rid of the president's elevated seat.

The root of the problem dates back to when City Hall got a $300 million makeover in the 1990s that made just about every hallway, bathroom and office accessible to the disabled. The exception was the board president's podium, which is reachable only for someone who can climb the five steps from the chamber floor.

The understanding was that the room would eventually be made fully accessible. But no one worried about the podium until 2004 when Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who uses a wheelchair, joined the board. [...]

Even if the board gives its final blessing, however, construction of the ramp won't be completed before the end of the year - midway through Alioto-Pier's second and final term.

"I deserve equal access to every part of the chamber," Alioto-Pier told her colleagues, adding that ending discrimination is worth the $1 million.

Nude buttocks may cost ABC $1.4 million

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $1.4 million fine against 52 ABC Television Network stations over a 2003 broadcast of cop drama NYPD Blue.

The fine is for a scene where a boy surprises a woman as she prepares to take a shower. The scene depicted "multiple, close-up views" of the woman's "nude buttocks" according to an agency order issued late Friday.

ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Co. The fines were issued against 52 stations either owned by or affiliated with the network.

FCC's definition of indecent content requires that the broadcast "depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities" in a "patently offensive way" and is aired between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

The agency said the show was indecent because "it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs -- specifically an adult woman's buttocks."

The agency rejected the network's argument that "the buttocks are not a sexual organ."

I'll be expecting one of you commenters to find these alleged buttocks on the youtubes.

Chafee remains contemptuous of Democrats who helped Bush to gin up this unnecessary invasion:

That includes New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom Chafee says put her presidential ambitions above standing up to Mr. Bush and the rush to war in Iraq.

"I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president," writes Chafee...

"They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment."

If you can't guess where lilmissnever works from this post, you're just not trying.

White House Missing Emails Were "Recycled"

Last night, in a midnight filing, the Bush adminstration admitted that it did not properly archive emails. But, that's not all --- they also admit to taping over the back-up tapes containing the email records. [...]

So, there was a system in place to archive emails, and the Bush administration simply stopped using it. Is there really any doubt that this is deliberately criminal activity? Those emails contain the details of the invasion of Iraq, the outing of Valerie Plame and the endangerement of our vital intelligence network, and the scheme to fire competent US Attorneys who refused to do their dirty work. [...]

And what about all of those RNC accounts the Bush officials were using? Remember those other "missing" emails? By Dana Perino's own admission there were at least 5 million missing.

FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here

The FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn't last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI's criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous -- and possibly illegal.

A check of federal court records in California did not reveal any prosecutions developed from falafel trails.

This is awesome:

SurveillanceSaver is an OS X screen saver that shows about 400 live security camera videos from public accessible Axis network cameras. It shows surprising scenes from underwater pool cameras, cows in milking machines, to shopping malls and street cameras.

'Howl' too hot to hear

Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.

Another irony: WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation station in New York that plans to post "Howl" online, is the same station that took on the FCC more than 30 years ago over the right to air George Carlin's comedy routine featuring the "seven dirty words." The challenge led to a 1978 Supreme Court decision governing what naughty words can be broadcast and when.

WBAI won't broadcast "Howl," even between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the hours the FCC has cordoned off for rougher language. WBAI program director Bernard White fears that the FCC will fine the station $325,000 for every one of Ginsberg's dirty-word bombs. If each Pacifica station that aired the poem - and possibly repeated it - were to be fined for airing "Howl," it could mean millions of dollars in fines.

The show they wouldn't air is on their web site.

Update: I've turned off comments on this because I honestly don't give a shit about the opinions of the drooling morons who feel the need to explain to me how this is all perfectly ok, or how "radio" or "speech" or "non-satellite radio" are somehow less deserving of First Amendment protection than is "print", or how it wasn't "really" censorship because the radio station decided not to broadcast it and get fined out of existence. You certainly have a right to these opinions (isn't democracy ironic?) but I still think you're a moron and don't want to waste any more of my time arguing with you, so fuck off.

Blackwater to guard FBI team probing it

When a team of FBI agents lands in Baghdad this week to probe Blackwater security contractors for murder, it will be protected by bodyguards from the very same firm.

Half a dozen FBI criminal investigators based in Washington are scheduled to travel to Iraq to gather evidence and interview witnesses about a Sept. 16 shooting spree that left at least 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

"It makes absolutely no sense that the FBI will be protected by the very people they are investigating," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan). "But given how the administration runs this war, it's hardly surprising."

In the past, FBI SWAT or hostage rescue team members protected other agents in the war zone. But the hostage rescue team force has been shrinking under the strain of bodyguard duty, leaving the FBI to rely increasingly on Blackwater when military escorts aren't available, sources said.

Drug Scanner Checks Public

Police used the force's new drugs itemiser - which scans people for traces of banned substances - at the Litten Tree pub. It was the first time the new technology, which detects traces of drugs from heroin to cannabis, had been used in the town.

Police officers tested 150 revellers as they arrived at the pub in Sheep Street between 10.30pm and midnight on Friday.

The pub managers barred anyone refusing to co-operate with the test from entering.

Det Sgt Steve Duffy, of Banbury CID, said two people tested positive and were searched but not found to be in possession of drugs. The pair were then banned from entering the pub, but not arrested.

Mr Duffy said: "It went very well. We gained the full co-operation of the management and the customers." He said: "The public were very supportive. Many people were saying they wanted to be tested."

Man Arrested for Refusing to Show Drivers License

"Michael Righi was arrested in Ohio over the weekend after refusing to show his receipt when leaving Circuit City. When the manger and 'loss prevention' employee physically prevented the vehicle he was a passenger in from leaving the parking lot, he called the police, who arrived, searched his bag and found he hadn't stolen anything. The officer then asked for Michael's driver's license, which he declined to provide since he wasn't operating a motor vehicle. The officer then arrested him, and upon finding out Michael was legally right about not having to provide a license, went ahead and charged him with 'obstructing official business' anyways."

Abu Ghraib officer found guilty of... discussing the abuse investigation

Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was the only officer and the last of 12 defendants to go to trial in the 2003 Abu Ghraib scandal, which embarrassed the Pentagon and shocked the Muslim world.

The jury acquitted Jordan of three counts: cruelty and maltreatment for subjecting detainees to forced nudity and intimidation by dogs; dereliction of a duty to properly train and supervise soldiers in humane interrogation rules; and failing to obey a lawful general order by ordering dogs used for interrogations without higher approval.

The jury found him guilty of one: disobeying a general's order not to talk to others about the investigation into the abuse.

Eleven enlisted soldiers have been convicted of crimes in connection the Abu Ghraib scandal. The longest sentence, 10 years, was given to former Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., of Uniontown, Pa., in January 2005. Lynndie England, who was an MP reservist from Fort Ashby, W. Va., and the most recognizable face from the Abu Ghraib photos, was sentenced to three years.

Senate Democrats Cave - Agree To Give Bush More Power To Spy On Americans Than Ever Before

But: OMG what a great photo.

Previously, previously, previously, ad nauseam.

Senate Backpedals On Legislation Requiring Paper Trail For E-Voting Machines

Democratic senators on Wednesday made another push for banning electronic voting machines that lack paper trails, but they've backed away from doing so in time for next year's presidential election.

Are they trying to say, "that's ok, we didn't expect to win anyway?"

And in almost equally WTF news,

California Republicans are pushing a ballot measure to divvy up the state's electoral votes by Congressional district in 2008. That could put the equivalent of Ohio back in play for the GOP, just in case one Ohio debacle wasn't enough.

I think the Electoral College system is pretty much bullshit, but come on: you can't change this shit one state at a time. It has to be simultaneous.