living on Mars: the 'pro' column

Scientists prepare for the rigors of space travel. (Warning: turn off your speakers; the website uses annoying autoplay ads. Really annoying.)

Six carefully selected scientists have entered a man-made dome on a remote Hawaii volcano as part of a human-behavior study that could help NASA as it draws up plans for sending astronauts on long missions to Mars. ...

They will have no physical contact with people in the outside world and will work with a 20-minute delay in communications with their support crew, or the time it would take for an email to reach Earth from Mars.

An email can travel from Mars to Earth in 20 minutes.

It took at least a couple of hours for an email sent to or from a federal inmate to reach its destination here on Earth, no matter how innocuous the contents.

why do so many Customs and Border Protection applicants fail polygraphs?

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is having a little trouble hiring enough agents.

Two out of three applicants to CBP fail its polygraph test, according to the agency. That’s more than double the average rate of eight law enforcement agencies that provided data to the Associated Press under open-records requests. 

It's a big reason approximately 2,000 jobs at the nation's largest law enforcement agency are empty, with the Border Patrol, a part of CBP, recently slipping below 20,000 agents for the first time since 2009. And it has raised questions of whether the lie detector tests are being properly administered.

Here's a good question: What is the proper way to administer a famously inaccurate test?

CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said the failure rate is too high, but that is largely because the agency hasn't attracted the applicants it wants.

Not the fault of the test, then. Perhaps the Craig's List item wasn't clear that the Border Patrol wants honest applicants and so they have been flooded with dishonest, even criminal applicants. An honesty mistake, one might say.

But others, including lawmakers, union leaders and polygraph experts, contend that the use of lie detectors has gone awry and that many applicants are being subjected to unusually long and hostile interrogations, which some say can make people look deceptive even when they are telling the truth. 

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona said he suspects CBP examiners fail applicants to justify their own jobs. He said he worries applicants are being wrongly branded with a "scarlet letter" in the eyes of other potential government employers.

While the idea that polygraph examiners are failing two-thirds of CBP applicants in order to keep their own jobs is intriguing, I am more interested in Senator Flake's recognition that a polygraph falsely labeling the applicant as a liar will make it nearly impossible for that person to be hired by other government agencies.

Kerlikowske explained that CBP isn't getting the applicants it wants because the relatively new agency, created in 2003, "doesn't have a brand" and is unfamiliar to some. 

Sure, that must be it. The fault lies with the applicants who are unaware that a nearly 14-year-old federal agency charged with enforcing federal laws is looking for honest applicants.

Among other possible reasons offered by some experts for the agency's failure rate: CBP may have higher standards than local departments, and it gets less-experienced applicants who have never taken a lie detector before.

Does that mean that taking a previous lie detector test makes a person more likely to pass? How is that possible if the test does what we are told it does?

Relying on an unreliable test to determine the accuracy of one's answers seems a little nuts.

Defending the polygraph by blaming the applicants seems even nuttier.

look at these strange women who stay with sex offenders!

Inside Edition ran a story by Maya Chung about women who stay in relationships with sex offenders.

My first thought is that I cannot remember seeing the same kind of curiosity about those mysterious people who stay in relationships with someone who stole cars or committed fraud or beat the convenience store clerk. The assumption in those cases seems to be that spouses will stay or go based on individual choices. Some people stay with car thief spouses and some leave.

Chung details a couple of relationships between sex offenders and their wives.

Josh and Susan:

"My husband came home early one day after having a big fight over the weekend and he caught Josh and me in the shower,” Susan said. “I did try to end our relationship a few times but the chemistry was just so strong that it was hard to let each other go. I didn’t mean for it to happen."

Jerry and Melissa:

She met Jerry at a charity event in 2006 – 17 years after his second offense. She said they became friends before becoming romantically involved. When he told her his status on the registry soon after they began dating, and she made a conscious decision to stay with him.

As with love stories told by other couples, some stories are boring, some are mildly interesting, some are sweet and some are a little shocking. 

While it may seem surprising to many, some women are willing to go through being outwardly shunned by family and their communities in the defense of the men because to them, love trumps all. 

Women--and men--have always been willing to go through hell for people they love. How is this surprising?

Their experiences being in a relationship with a sex offender may be different, but these women have another thing in common: An undeniable faith in their men.

Yes, being in a relationship with a registered citizen offers a different experience. A parent can lose custody of his or her children; neighbors will make terrible assumptions and gossip about them; family members cut ties.

All because a name is on a list.

Because a name is on a list, there is a real risk of prison time for missing a paperwork deadline. Most families of former lawbreakers do not have to live with that hanging over their heads.

Sex offenders are not fearsome monsters. They are people who committed crimes, made terrible choices, or got caught up in surprising circumstances. Spouses and partners can continue to love or dislike them, trust or mistrust as they choose, based on whether they are good parents, good cooks, good lovers, or based on any criteria that mean something to a specific couple.

There is no default 'Abandon Ship' setting on relationships with registered sex offenders, just as there is no default setting on relationships with adulterers or with people who cheat on taxes or with people who are boring or snore too much or are overweight.

We all see relationships that don't make sense to us. Why does he stay with her? Has he not seen what a tyrant she can be at the PTA meetings? Why does she stay with him? Does she not know that he has never in his life had a generous moment?

The reason we look at spouses and partners of sex offenders as something exotic is because the registry encourages the false idea that registered citizens are dangerous.

Abolish the registry.