Pregnant, and No Civil Rights →

Scary and insane:

Based on the belief that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.
In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for “attempted fetal homicide.”

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear New Challenge To Obamacare →

 

The justices announced Friday they will decide on a lawsuit claiming that the language of the Affordable Care Act doesn't allow the government to provide tax credits to low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers using the federally run Obamacare exchanges operating in more than 30 states. The lawsuit contends that the ACA only permits subsidies to be distributed by state-run exchanges.

 

Pass Phrases Protected; Fingerprints Not — Curiouser and Curiouser →

 

And now comes another twist – a case from a lower Virginia state court (I can’t seem to find a copy of the opinion, so my analysis is based on this news report from Hampton Roads). The court held (consistent with the growing case law) that a defendant could not be compelled to unlock his cell phone by means of his passphrase. So far, so good.

But the defendant had made a mistake – he had also enabled the fingerprint unlock feature on his phone, so that it could be unlocked with the swipe of his finger. And the court went on to hold that the finger swipe was =not= protected and could be compelled.

 

Minimum Wage Tracks Productivity: Fair Deal on the Minimum Wage →

Good thought experiment, at least:

Anyhow, Lane wants politicians to stop raising the minimum wage so he proposes indexing it to the rate of inflation. The idea of indexation is good, but Lane has the wrong target. Back in the good old days, when we had 4.0 percent growth and 3.0 percent unemployment, the minimum wage rose in step with productivity. If it had continued to rise in step with productivity since its peak level in 1968 it would be more than $17 an hour today.

Ordering The Vegetarian Meal? There’s More Animal Blood On Your Hands →

 

Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:

  • at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
  • more environmental damage, and
  • a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.

How is this possible?

 

Brittany Maynard and the debate about death that America needs to have →

...Regulating death is terrible politics. And so death goes unregulated. But the dearth of debate and discussion doesn't eliminate assisted suicide. Instead, it pushes it into the shadows, where doctors will only admit anonymously to helping patients end their own lives.

Surveys of oncologists show that some cancer doctors, when asked anonymously, will admit to helping patients die. A heavily-cited 2000 survey of more than 3,000 doctors, published in the Lancet, found one in seven oncologists had "carried out euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide."

1 World Trade Center is open for business →

 

After years of costly delays and political infighting, the crown jewel of the new World Trade Center complex will finally be open for business Monday, welcoming its first wave of workers.

About 175 employees from anchor tenant and publishing giant Condé Nast — whose employees include Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter, Vogue’s Anna Wintour and the New Yorker’s David Remnick — will move into offices on floors 20 through 44 of the 104-floor “Freedom Tower,” officially 1 World Trade Center.