Fellow West Virginian and photoblogger Rick Lee has lots to look at.
Rumblings From the Right
More bad reviews:
Americans have learned to expect little from Congress, and by that standard the 109th version, controlled by Republicans, has met expectations. On the other hand, anyone who hoped that the GOP would make something of its historic governing opportunity is bound to be disappointed so far.
Five months in, Congress can point to the following achievements: a bankruptcy bill 10 years in the making, and a class-action reform watered down essentially to a jurisdictional change to federal from state courts. That’s about it. Among the 2004 campaign promises that aren’t close to being fulfilled are making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reforming Social Security and expanding the market for private health care. Instead of any of those big three, Congress next seems poised to pass a subsidy-laden energy bill and a highway bill with some 4,000 earmarks for individual Members. For this we elected Republicans?
The Democratic/media explanation for this performance is that Republicans are “overreaching” and trying to “govern from the right.” We should be so lucky. The fact is that they are governing from nowhere at all. Far from pushing their agenda, they seem cowed by their opposition into playing it safe and attempting too little.
Is anyone, other than MBNA and the credit card hucksters, happy with this Congress?
We Finally Have the Key
After decades of fighting, billions of dollars spent, millions of incarcerated Americans, via the Drug War Rant I see that we finally have the solution to our drug crisis.
If you guessed the solution would be to partially decriminalize possession and consumption of marijuana, you would be wrong.
If you guessed ending mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, you would be wrong.
If you guessed this new solution would be a dramatic increase in rehabilitation and treatment and less reliance on excessive incarceration, you would be wrong.
If you guessed it would be to introduce realistic and believable drug education programs, ones in which the police and authorities would stop suggesting that marijuana is as dangerous as crack cocaine, you would be wrong.
If you guessed authorities would investigate areas hardest hit by drug abuse, and look to change the overall sociological, economic, and political underpinnings which makes the citizens more vulnerable to drug addiction, and taking the necessary steps to help these people change their circumstances, you would be wrong.
What then, could be the ultimate solution we have been looking for?
Restricting the sale of cold medicine:
Restricting sales of cold meds key to war on drugs
FOR 10 years, the increased usage and manufacturing of methamphetamine has been a serious drain on law enforcement’s resources and time. The drug, a cheap cocaine if you will, is firmly rooted in our state, particularly in the Central Valley, which is considered the capital of methamphetamine manufacturing.
Now, after flourishing under the radar screen of many people and politicians, meth has been placed in the spotlight in recent weeks and now is being addressed by Congress. But acknowledgment is not in your typical drug war rhetoric or legislation.
The new offensive in the war against methamphetamine is happening down at your neighborhood drug store.
Believe it or not, the cold medicines that we buy to battle coughs and runny noses are at the heart of the war against meth. Unlike its intended use, medication such as Sudafed is being used as a key ingredient in the manufacturing of methamphetamine.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
As someone who has dealt with people ravaged by drug addiction, this idiotic mentality on the part of our government just depresses me. And this in no way is intended to minimize how dangerous the meth epidemic is in our country, because it is a serious problem. In West Virginia alone, meth labs are everywhere and growing at an alarming rate, and restricting the sale of OTC drugs will have a short-term effect.
But it isn’t the solution to drug addiction. Merely attacking the supply never is.
Oh, screw it. Go read all of Mark Kleiman’s research on this topic (scroll down through his vita and you will find the links), and in particular, this piece. And for the Drug Warriors in the audience, if you think Kleiman, simply because he is a squishy liberal, is just another NORML rope-smoker, you will be surprised.
And, if you want the global hysteria over drugs encapsulated in less than 50 words, I offer you this:
Bali Sentencing Logic:
Smuggle 4 kilos of drugs into Bali, get 20 years in prison.
Blow up a nightclub in Bali and kill over 200 poeople? Get less than 3 years.
*** Update ***
Mark says I am all washed up, but I still maintain that this is nothing more than a quick fix.
And, again, I am not against this- I am merely ridiculing the idea that this is ‘the key’ or ‘the solution’ to our drug problems.
Nascar Whiners, aka High Octane Whine
Many of you have heard of or read the short story titled Harrison Bergeron. For those of you who have not, a primer:
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren
This Will Cause A Stir
Tariq Aziz is in the headlines:
He was the urbane, English-speaking deputy to Saddam Hussein, the bespectacled face of the former Iraqi dictator’s regime, at home on the international stage.
Yet nothing had been heard or seen from Tariq Aziz since he surrendered to US forces on 24 April, 2003, as Iraq crumbled around him…
Writing in Arabic, Aziz says: ‘We are totally isolated from the world. There are 13 other detainees here, but we have no meetings or telephone contacts wth our families. I have been accused unjustly, but to date no proper investigation has taken place. It is imperative that there is intervention into our dire situation and treatment. It is totally in contradiction to international law, the Geneva Convention and Iraqi law as we know it.’
In a letter dated 7 March and written in English, Aziz states: ‘We hope that you will help us. We have been in prison for a long time and we have been cut from our families. No contacts, no phones, no letters. Even the parcels sent to us by our families are not given to us. We need a fair treatment, a fair investigation and finally a fair trial. Please help us.’
In another letter, written in Arabic and English, he says: ‘I haven’t been accused of anything,’ and ‘I have not done anything contrary to law and human behaviour.’
And the mess continues. I really don’t care if Tariq Aziz is given to the New Iraqi government and shot in public, despite my general opposition to the death penalty.
However, at some point, serious people inside our government are going to have to recognize what a muddled mess our indefinite detainment of ‘enemy combatants’ has become. Put aside the fact that it flies in the face of the fundamental sense of decency that most Amereicans have regarding the rights of accused as embodied in the US Constitution. I recognize that the determination has been made that they do not deserve those same Constitutional rigfts.
However, at some point, they deserve a right to a fair, open, and transparent hearing, the right to be charged and face their accusers publicly, and we risk continued domestic and world support of the more important war on terror if we continue to detain individuals in much the same manner that Roberto Mugabe would detain his political opposition. And before you scream at me for comparing the United States with a despicable murderous strongman, I am not. I am comparing our willingness to lock people up and seemingly forget about them, without affording them any sense of the rights of due process.
Tariq Aziz and those like him may have committed crimes for which they can never atone, crimes for which they can never adequately be punished, and it is exceptionally difficult to lose any sleep over them. However, I think it would be wise to judge the impact of this policy of permanent detainment without legal protection, particularly in light of the eroding sense of confidence in the world that the United States is on the right side of the issue.
This does not mean capitulating to the will of our enemies, and allowing them to use the systems in place in a liberal democracy as a weapon against us. It does mean that we have to recognize that our actions, however justified in the short term, are going to have long-term consequences that may damage our over-all goals- eradicating terrorism and creating a stable, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Middle East.
*** Update ***
More here.
Prager On Religion
This is a genuinely interesting piece on the difference between liberal and conservative religious peoples:
A number of years ago I discovered a root cause of America’s culture war. It came to me as I debated professor Alan Dershowitz about issues of Jewish concern before a 1,000 Jews at the 92nd Street “Y” in New York City. With the exception of support for Israel, Dershowitz, a Harvard liberal, and I agreed on nothing, political or religious. Toward the end of the evening I came to understand why.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I announced, “the major difference between Alan Dershowitz and me is this: When professor Dershowitz differs with the Torah, he assumes that he is right and the Torah is wrong. When I differ with the Torah, I assume that I am wrong and the Torah is right.” Dershowitz responded that for the first time that evening he agreed with me.
That realization was an epiphany for me. I have come to realize that the great divide in values is not between those who believe in God and those who do not but between those who believe in a divine text and those who do not.
This explains in large measure the great culture war in the United States. Americans, of course, are divided not so much by religion as between right and left. Jews and Christians on the left agree with each other on just about every political and social question, and Jews and Christians on the right do the same.
So what distinguishes leftist Jews from rightist Jews and leftist Christians from rightist Christians? It essentially comes down to their belief in the Bible, not their belief in God.
Yes, this is a simplistic breakdown of differences, but there appears to be a lot to this. Any thoughts?
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Or, you could just buy me this laptop.
And with that, I am off to watch Kinsey, which I hope will not suck as much as I am afraid it will.