My Dissertation, In A Word Cloud

Hobby Lobby Explicated

For some reason, people's inability to understand the Hobby Lobby case is bothering me more than people's general inability to understand SCOTUS decisions, so I thought I'd take a crack at setting out the court's reasoning.

1. In the 90's, two Native Americans were fired from their job because they tested positive for the use of peyote.

2. They applied for unemployment insurance and were denied because they were fired for good cause, having tested positive for using peyote.

3. The Native Americans argued that denying them unemployment insurance burdened their exercise of their religion, which involved using peyote, and was thus unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

4. The Supreme Court held that, if a law is generally applicable to everyone -- in context, if the law is not about religion -- then the Constitution does not give people any exemption even if that law burdens their religious beliefs. (That is, the Native Americans have to choose between their religious practice of using peyote and getting unemployment insurance.)

5. Congress didn't like that result, and so it passed a law (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)) that said that there is an exception to any law of general application if it burdens a person's religious beliefs, unless the interest served by the law is compelling and imposes the least possible burden consistent with that compelling interest. "Person" is not defined in RFRA, but there's another statute that says, among other things, that whenever the word "person" is used in federal law, it includes corporations. RFRA also says that Congress can include a provision in any future statute saying that it is not subject to RFRA.

6. 20 years later, Congress passed health care reform (HCR). There is no provision in HCR saying that RFRA doesn't apply.

7. After HCR passed, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a regulation that requires all employer provided health insurance plans to cover the cost of 20 specific contraceptives.

8. The owners of Hobby Lobby say that they are devout Christians and have a religious objection to providing health insurance that covers 4 of the 20 required contraceptives because those 4 could stop an embryo from implanting in the mother's womb and thus result in the death of the embryo, which they consider murder.

9. Hobby Lobby claimed that HHS' regulation burdened its owners' religious beliefs by involving them (in their own opinion) in murder if they had to provide insurance covering the 4 specific contraceptives.

10. The government claimed, first, that RFRA doesn't apply to for-profit corporations because they can't have religious beliefs and, second, that its regulation isn't a substantial burden.

11. It is clear that RFRA applies to corporations and the government didn't argue otherwise. Among other things, churches are corporations and everyone agreed that a church could sue under RFRA.

12. But can for-profit corporations have a religious belief? The government argued no. The Court held, yes. It had previously decided religious freedom cases brought by corporations; religious freedom cases brought by businesses, and religious freedom cases brought by business corporations (a Kosher butcher sued Massachusetts, arguing that it should not be subject to Massachusetts' Sunday closing law because it also had to be closed on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath).

13. The Court assumed that the government's interest in the HHS regulations was compelling because it held that it clearly wasn't the least restrictive regulation possible. HHS had exempted non-profit corporations from its regulation and the Court held that the least restrictive regulation possible would have exempted Hobby Lobby too.

This Might Be The Most Pro-Gun Article Ever On Bloomberg

Detroit Homeowners Gun Down Burglars as Police Await Cars By Chris Christoff Apr 28, 2014 8:45 PM

Even as bankrupt Detroit’s residents have resorted to gunning down neighborhood burglars, its police await money for patrol cars, radios, armored vests and modern computers.

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr last month pledged $36.2 million for police from a $120 million loan from Barclays Plc approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Rhodes.... The loan was obtained this month and will be spent as purchases and bids are processed, said city Chief Financial Officer John Hill in an interview. He said police vehicles must be ordered from manufacturers and outfitted with special equipment. In the meantime, many Detroit residents are fending for themselves.

Craig last month defended citizens’ right to shoot if attacked. Indeed, eight times this year residents killed intruders. In the most recent incident, gunshots from a homeowner April 17 interrupted a break-in and mortally wounded the driver of a getaway SUV that crashed into a house across the street, according to police. Two suspects fled on foot.

Every distopian future needs an armed citizenry.

Now, that's creepy.

Separated At Birth?

The Cake Is A Lie

Every Time I Think I'm Out, They Drag Me Back In.

The Canadians, that is. Apparently, three Canadian erotica channels are in trouble with the government and in danger of losing their license because they don't air enough Canadian content. Because the channels air 24 hours a day, they need 8.5 hours of Canadian porn -- which they plan to get by looping the same hour of Canadian porn 9 times a day. I would lard this thread with Canadian jokes, but the commenters over at the National Post have done the work for me.

The Ultimate First World Problem

Your fancy toilet can be hacked. This appears to result entirely from the failure of the manufacturer to take any precautions against hacking, perhaps unable to imagine the temptations of toilet hacking.

In The Cool v. Creepy War Over New Technology,

This lands in the cool side, but only just.

Oh This Modern Life

When sitting at my computer at home, I'm surrounded by my iPad, my iPhone, my Kindle and, of course, my computer (two screens, no waiting). When an email arrives, it's like high noon in a clock shop.

Word of the Day

Today's word is Cisgender, the opposite of transgender, defined as "types of gender identity where an individual's self-perception of their gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth", which hints at the problem.

We Interupt this Blog Vacation...

For reasons that will be obvious to longtime readers (if there's anyone out there still).

Evolution May Be More Random Than Previously Believed

Some ecologists say the theory needs an update. They’ve proposed a new dynamic driving the emergence of new species, one that doesn’t involve adaptations or survival of the fittest.

Give evolution enough time and space, they say, and new species can just happen. Speciation might not only be an evolutionary consequence of fitness differences and natural selection, but a property intrinsic to evolution, just as all matter has gravity.

For reasons that remain unclear, they don't seem to be calling it the Cohen Theory of Evolution.

Happy Solstice to All

As we do most years, if it occurs to me, all of us here at the Secret Blog wish you and yours a happy day gathered around the ol'pagan symbol swapping the tokens of modern materialism.

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century

I had no idea.

The constant obsession of our popular culture with Holmes is something of a mystery to me, although I watch both current attempts at updating Holmes (the first BBC series is good bordering on great, the second and third episodes of the second series are almost unwatchable). But why Holmes?

Also, the constant ferment of Holmesiana is a great argument against extending copyright. These are the sorts of derivative work that copyright (intended to promote the arts) shuts down entirely.

This, Too, Shall Pass

One of the many consolations of being conservative is that we can't be too depressed at people voting for the status quo.

A Good Start

In January 2008, 144,607,000 Americans 16 and over were employed. This month, 140,987,000 Americans 16 and over are employed. During the same period, the national debt has increased by approximately $5 trillion or one-third.

What Does A Grecian Earn?

Isn't the most likely result of the elections in Greece this weekend a stalemate? And isn't a stalemate a pretty good result for the Euro? It avoids withdrawal but also pushes back a Eurescue of Greece, which is increasingly unpopular in Germany, in the UK and probably even in France.

Nature Boy, covered by Pomplamoose

We've All Had This Fantasy

What Have I Been Doing?

Among other things, making pretty pictures.