Have you ever seen those commercials for a credit protection service called LifeLock? This guy shares his social security number and dares the world to steal his identity:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXANhTH_oSo&feature=related]

But, wait! Don’t be fooled: apparently, lots of people are suing the company because the service doesn’t work. And the dude, Todd Davis, has had his identity stolen many times: at least 20 people have used his social security number to apply for driver’s licenses (some of whom succeeded!) and at least 87 others have tried to apply for credit with his name, one of who succeeded in getting $500 from an online loan program.

LifeLock Doesn’t Work

“Security experts say complaints about the company reinforce the time-honored wisdom of keeping your Social Security number secret.”

Uh, duh?

This time with a commentary on race and the death penalty. I’m starting to love this guy. In today’s Times, Liptak examines a forthcoming study by the Houston Law Review on racial disparities in the application of the death penalty in Harris County, Texas. He writes:

The unexceptional finding is that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks. More than 20 studies around the nation have come to similar conclusions.

But the new study also detected a more straightforward disparity. It found that the race of the defendant by itself plays a major role in explaining who is sentenced to death.

Check it, and look for more of Liptak’s pieces in which he brings to light the harsh truths of our criminal justice system.

For some reason, it takes fancily-worded articles in the New York Times for my family and friends to realize what I’ve been hollering about for years… America’s addiction to incarceration. Anyway, props to Adam Liptak for consistently bringing these issues to public eye. Today, Liptak sheds light on an important and staggering statistic: that the US, with 5% of the world’s population, incarcerates nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners. He writes:

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Oh, and speaking of crimes that would not produce prison sentences in other countries, scope my bit on how lil’ Rhody incarcerates its debtors in this week’s Phoenix.

By the first night of Passover this year, Providence supermarkets had already run out of Matzo. To those of us planning on observing the holiday’s mandated eight-day abandonment of chametz, leavened breads and wheat/yeast-filled products, this presented quite the dilemma. [Oy vey!] Ultimately, Ari and I found a secret stash of Matzo at the Shaws in Cranston but, still, the Providence Matzo shortage seemed pretty bizarre. What’s up? It’s not that there’s been an influx of Jews to Providence, or a rapid increase in the number of Jews who observe Passover, says Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times; the problem is a national Matzo shortage.

Steinhauer explains:

From coast to coast, a shortfall of the unleavened flat cracker bread eaten by Jews during the eight days of Passover has sent shoppers scurrying from store to store in search of it. On Monday, Allison Mnookin circled the aisles of her local Whole Foods store in San Mateo, Calif., three times. There was no matzo to be found. [...]

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Dear Rolling Stone,

Here is a list of things I don’t ever want to think about ever:

1. Mick Jagger getting off
2. Keith Richards getting off
3. Jack White getting off
4. Ryan Seacrest getting off

And as much as I am generally annoyed by your publication, I would like to humbly thank you for having the courtesy to not make me think about Ryan Seacrest’s sex life today.

Yours,

Matthew Lawrence

PS–Why is it that suddenly “Passing The Torch,” “Investigating Bush,” and “One Congressman’s Crusade” all sound like the titles of dirty movies?

His family wants a wedding, her kids love him, a secret sexy hideaway.

Dear Us Weekly,

Please learn how sentences work before your next issue.

Love,
Matthew Lawrence

PS–That might be the most uninteresting yet terrible picture of Jake and RWith that I’ve ever seen.

While he’s no John Lewis, or Alice Walker, or even a Jay-Z, as a former Clinton supporter 50 Cent’s mostly incoherent endorsement of Obama is newsworthy. Of course, he tries hard to argue otherwise. Quoth Fiddy:

Don’t look for my vote, for me to determine nothing on that. Just say, ‘50 Cent, he don’t know, so don’t ask Fiddy.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5vzwJXszww]

First, note Chris Wallace’s calling out the Fox and Friends ghouls for what looked to him and other sane people like “two hours of Obama bashing.” Note that Wallace may the only halfway respectable journalist at Fox News, and then give him some props.

Next, note Anderson Cooper’s blog, where - shockingly - someone actually decided to read Reverand Wright’s full 9/11 sermon:

I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

Finally, peep this piece in today’s Politico, where the lede is: “One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.” more »

A couple of sites in the Gawker empire have picked up the article in last weeks Projo about how legal prostitution is in Rhode island, how it has to be indoors, etc. but that in the wake of the whole Elliot Spitzer shitstorm lawmakers are working to close that loophole. But in the process, Wonkette referes to Providence as “grimy”. Aw, c’mon!

Obama’s speech yesterday addressing race and the manufactured Jeremiah Wright controversy was brilliant and moving. Whether you agree with that assessment or see him as a crafty politician giving another pretty speech, it is notable for the fact that he actually dared to speak to the voters about a difficult issue as if they were mature adults capable of nuanced understanding and rational discussion.

It is unfortunate that we have to praise him for what should be the standard in American political discourse, but the fact remains that such forthright maturity is decidedly not the standard. All that remains to be seen is whether the voters (and pundits, and media, and his political opponents) actually are mature adults capable of nuanced understanding and rational discussion.

With Jeremiah Wright’s fiery and scary-to-white-people sermons on endless, Fox-driven repeat, Obama needed to step up and deliver a huge speech to define himself and change a growing negative racial dynamic that’s been hurting him since Gerri Ferraro went buckwild last week.

This morning, he did, with a huge speech in Philadelphia. It is definitely worth reading the full text, after the jump. But a few points, for now.

First, on substance, a soaring, moving, deeply personal speech about the complicated, fearful, deep-seated views on race that we all have, which condemns Reverend Wright’s more crazy views while seeing in them the divisive fear that racial issues can stoke in any community. I think what Andrew Sullivan is getting at is probably that there is much of the best of Christian theology in some of the ideas that Obama was putting forth. There is also a deep, broad, frankly inspiring understanding of the cruel and beautiful complexity of American history.

I almost feel bad block-quoting it, so just watch the video.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU&e] more »

While media attention has focused, over the past few days, on the indiscretions of Elliot Spitzer, the celebration of his Wall Street enemies, and the hotness of his $1000/hr prostitute, we might be missing the best part of this story: that Spitzer’s Lieutenant Governor, now Governor, David Paterson is awesome. Paterson, the first African-American and first legally blind person to hold the position of New York Lieutenant Gov., might be unready to jump into the role of state executive, but he might be just the man to bring real change to New York. Danny Hakim and John Sullivan profile the challenges facing Paterson, particularly the state’s mammoth budget deficit (we know a lil’ something about that here, no?), in today’s New York Times:

Mr. Paterson is considered more liberal than Mr. Spitzer on some key issues, and that could create friction with the Republicans. He opposes the death penalty and strongly supports overhauling New York’s Rockefeller-era drug laws, for example. Years ago he introduced a proposal to allow noncitizens to vote. On issues like abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Mr. Paterson is staunchly liberal, as is Mr. Spitzer.

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Liberal columnist and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Anthony Lewis, will be speaking Wednesday, March 19th, at the Roger Williams University School of Law. Following the lecture, Mr. Lewis will sign copies of his books, including Freedom For the Thought We Hate. (Turns out the First Amendment was designed for guys like Ralph Papitto. But shunning is still pretty effective.)

lecture March 19/starts 5PM/ RWU School of Law rm 283

RSVP by March 12 to Barbara Slover whose email addy is, I kid you not, bslover@rwu.edu. Or call (401) 254-4573.

Though the New York Times betrayed us all with its H-bomb Clinton endorsement, the paper keeps rocking out with its outspoken opinion on mass incarceration and criminal injustice: scope this editorial.

In the Washington Post, the dumbest woman alive argues that all women are dimwits, using her own complete stupidity to prove the point.

I wish I could be angry about this, but mostly I find it hilarious. Useless anecdotes about Grey’s Anatomy and romance novels! Refutable science about the human brain! This bitch is crazy!

Wait, is it satire? Did she mean to sound like an idiot to prove her point? Because if she actually articulated a good idea then she might be mistaken for an intelligent woman, thus refuting her argument…

This is totally over my head. Maybe I am dumb…