Tainted property

If you buy a house, you have a right to know whether that house was the site of a homicide, a suicide or some other felony, right? Not in Missouri. Section 442.600 RSMo provides that sellers of such "psychologically impacted real property" need not disclose these things to new buyers. Therefore, you don't have a right to know if the husband of the woman selling you the house hanged himself in the room you are about to call your new bedroom. This same statute provides that sellers have no duty to disclose to you that someone with HIV occupied the house. It's a different story if the house was used as a meth lab (BTW, in 2011, Missouri led the nation in the number of meth labs seized). If the seller knows that his or her house was once used as a meth lab, this must be disclosed, regardless of whether those operating the meth lab were convicted of any crime. Section 442.606 RSMo.

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How to protect your electronic data at the border

Electronic Frontier Foundation has a detailed article advising you of your (lack of) rights when you enter and leave the United States (this applies to citizens and non-citizens). Here is some basic advice, but check out the article for lots of good advice regarding encryption, use of clouds, backups and other advice, much of it useful even when you are not traveling:

Border agents have a great deal of discretion to perform searches and make determinations of admissibility at the border. Keep in mind that any traveler, regardless of citizenship status or behavior, can be temporarily detained by border agents for more detailed questioning, a physical search of possessions, or a more extensive physical search. Refusal to cooperate with searches, answer questions, or turn over passwords to let agents access or decrypt data may cause lengthy questioning, seizure of devices for further examination, or, in extreme circumstance, prevent admission to the country. For this reason, it may be best to protect your data in ways that don’t require you to have awkward confrontations with border agents at all.

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End the use of long-term solitary confinement in Illinois!

Hey all. I haven't been posting since last summer, mostly because I've been drowning in graduate school duties. One of these duties has been interning at Chicago's Cook County Jail. There, I sit in on group therapy sessions for inmates with drug-related offenses. I've been consistently touched by the philosophical and psychological depth of these men, their gentleness and the span of their regrets. These are men who will sit down and opine for hours on topics you wouldn't expect low-SES drug dealers and addicts to have much knowledge of: gender identity is a big topic, for example (these guys live firsthand the consequences of masculinity). And when it comes to living with shame or regret, these guys are almost the best resource you can find. The only place where you can find more affecting people, I think, is at prisons. I've been volunteering for a Chicago-based group called Tamms Year Ten, which advocates for prisoners housed in long-term solitary confinement. I write and read inmates' letters, respond to their requests for photos and magazines, and read their countless reports of abuse-- from medical staff, from Corrections Officers, from mail room staff, and from the state itself. Let's be clear on what "long-term" solitary confinement means. These men at Tamms are housed alone for 23-hours a day, with zero human contact, for decades. Some have been locked up alone for 23-28 years. [More . . . ]

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Because Whitney Houston died from abusing alcohol, America shrugs.

If Whitney Houston had died from the use of marijuana, politicians would have been screaming to enact even more vigorous anti-marijuana laws. Those who care about evidence know, however, that marijuana is an notably safe drug--it doesn't cause people to die. Whitney Houston actually died after abusing alcohol, a drug that causes many people to die every year. Because it was alcohol rather than a scheduled substance, Americans treat it as a sad occurrence, without villainizing Houston. In modern-day America, despite the grave dangers of alcohol abuse, alcohol related deaths are given winks and nods by our politicians:

Because drinking is legal for adults, safe in moderation, the rightful font of epicurean reveries and the foundation of a multibillion-dollar industry with lobbyists galore, it gets something of a pass. . . . [H]eavy drinking is the third leading preventable cause of death in this country, after smoking and a combination of bad diet and inactivity. By conservative estimates, it’s directly related to about 80,000 deaths each year, an agent of — or co-conspirator in — cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, overdose, homicide and much, much more. It seeds and squires a broad range of diseases. Multiplies the effects of illicit and prescription drugs. Adds the twitch to a trigger finger. Puts the wobble in legs on a staircase or hands on a steering wheel. And while 8 percent of Americans ages 12 and over use illicit drugs, 34 percent are addicted to alcohol or indulge in what public health officials consider risky drinking . . . .

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