This is a great slideshow. It would be even better if I understood Dutch.

Twenty years ago my family used to buy milk from my grandparent’s neighbors. The raw, unpasteurized milk came in 2 gallon glass bottles and tasted great. You had to skim off the cream on top which meant that it was whole milk–and then some.

In Ohio, they are fighting a terrible plague. Meth labs, gang warfare, and prostitution ring and pale before the problem caused by the Amish selling, horror of horrors, raw unlabeled milk. The Ohio Department of Agriculture, mounted a sting operation and busted Arlie Stutzman of this horrible offense.

Arlie is fighting back, but sadly, I think his legal argument is a bit weak.

Enough with the World Cup. It’s a fine sporting event and all, but I don’t care. The greatest international sporting event is about to begin–The Tour de France! The first tour without Lance Armstrong in years should be very interesting. The 7.1 km opening prologue won’t tell us much, but then again there could be some intersting action. Last year Lance Armstrong passed Jan Ullrich during the 19 km prologue putting everyone on notice that Armstrong was on form and ready to win the Tour again.

This year it will be interesting to see if Zabriskie (from Salt Lake City) could win, or whether Jan Ullrich is back on form, or if the Amish-raised Floyd Landis will do well. Bring on the Tour.

More on the Tour from VeloNews.

Here’s an interesting article about how today’s aircraft carriers might not be very helpful against Iran or China.

What the battleship was in 1941, the aircraft carrier is now: a big, proud, expensive…sitting duck.Aircraft carriers came out of WW II looking powerful, but that was before microchips. Now, when an enemy tanker can fire 60 self-guiding cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away, no carrier will survive its first real battle.

Carriers are not only the biggest and most expensive ships ever built–they’re the most vulnerable. Because even one serious cruise-missile hit means the carrier can’t launch its planes, its best weapons. They will sink to the bottom with their crews, not having fired a shot.

Eugene Volokh persuasively argues that money is not speech (because for example money isn

From the Defective Yeti:

When Coke sold in 6 oz. bottles it was billed as the “pause” that refreshes. Now it’s a motherlovin’ sabbatical.

I’m a fan of Justice Scalia, but his opinion in Hudson vs. Michigan where the Court held that the exclusionary rules does not apply when the Cops don’t knock and announce before before searching. The exclusionary rule is a bad rule because it only protects the guilty–it does not protect the innocent from violations of their Fourth Amendment rights. We need a new rule that protects the innocent instead of the guilty and provides the proper incentives for the police not to violate people’s Fourth Amendment rights. But Justice Scalia, doesn’t come up with a better rule and his opinion in Hudson vs. Michigan only makes more Fourth Amendment violating police raids more likely.

In Scalia’s opinion he cited the work of Sam Walker, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. But Walker isn’t happy with Scalia’s scholarship. Walker writes:

Even worse, he twisted my main argument to reach a conclusion the exact opposite of what I spelled out in this and other studies.

The misuse of evidence is a serious offense

From the St. Petersburg Times.

Apropos of nothing:

Prostitutes’ rights group COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) was founded in San Francisco in the early ’70s. It has evolved into a support network of feminists, sex workers and their supporters, who believe the laws against prostitution are detrimental to women’s rights.