BunkBlog

According to an in-depth AP article today, the War on (some) Drugs is an abject failure. This should surprise just about nobody, although apparently there are some who remain shocked to find gambling at Rick’s Cafe as well.

The current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske, even admitted on record that “In the grand scheme, it has not been successful.” Naturally, his predecessor, John Walters, takes the opposite tack: “To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven’t made any difference is ridiculous. It destroys everything we’ve done. It’s saying all the people involved in law enforcment, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It’s saying all these people’s work is misguided.” Sorry to say, Mr. Walters, but you can’t change reality just by wishing it wasn’t just a giant waste of time and money.

One trillion dollars spent over forty years, in order to prove that Prohibition was not an anomaly? We’ve been inundated with “Just Say No” and DARE and other programs, yet high school kids have the same rate of drug use today as in 1970, when Nixon kicked this thing off. $450 billion has been spent to incarcerate drug offenders in federal prison (no mention of how much states spend in addition), where most data indicates incarceration leads to increased drug usage when released.

Portugal decriminalized drug use in 2001. Decriminalization is not legalization – it just means a user won’t go to jail for doing drugs; the drugs themselves remain illegal to deal. I know, strange but that’s the legal system for you. In the years since, HIV infections from dirty needles have dropped by 70%, and drug overdoses have dropped by 30%. Also, the rate of young people using drugs has dropped, and the number of people seeking drug treatment has doubled. 10% of Portuguese have used marijuana in their lifetimes; in the USA that number is close to 40%.

The United States has 5% of the world population but 25% of the world’s prisoners. We must be doing something wrong.

Anyone who has flown in the past 8 years or so has grown accustomed to the ever-increasing indignities inflicted on the airline passenger of today. We can’t have more than 3 oz of liquids, we have to remove our shoes, we can’t have a knife as dangerous as the ones they hand out in Business Class to spread butter with, etc.

There are a few things that most people don’t know but may cause you to wonder if the security apparatus is really intended to do anything other than look impressive, while failing utterly to be impressive once investigated more deeply. For example, airline pilots and crew must go through the exact same security screening to get on the plane as passengers. Some pilots and crew find this a bizarre and pointless ceremony, but at least there is consistency. In the inconsistent column, airport workers don’t have to go through the same screening as passengers and crew. They undergo background checks, and then are essentially given the keys to the back rooms of the airport. You’d think, if maniacally checking everyone that enters the plane and stays onboard is so important, checking the people who enter the plane and then get off again would be more important.

But, there’s a great story out today that is even more mind-boggling than inconsistent and simply silly security rules: a man piloted jumbo jets for thirteen years with no passenger pilot’s license.  Back in the 1960s, Frank Abagnale was able to bluff his way into such situations, but that was in the days before Google. To be fair, Thomas Salme did indeed have an expired commercial pilot’s license, but that’s for things like UPS planes. He racked up over 10,000 hours of accident-free passenger flights over his thirteen years, so I guess we could do worse.

Elena Kagan – uninspiring choice or “change” you can’t detect?

Senator McCain, a man I once thought a decent and honorable human being, has become so enmeshed in the GOP machine he decried and rebelled against in previous decades, that he now says the law should be ignored when arresting American citizens for crimes in the USA. Astonishing.

Specifically, McCain says we should not inform suspects of their Constitutional rights if we think they’re guilty of terrorism. He says nothing about other crimes. What proves he’s engaging in simple “dog whistle” politics instead of actually saying anything of substance is that “Mirandizing” a suspect does not imbue them with any rights they didn’t already have. The only thing reading that list of Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights does is immunize the police from having confessional evidence thrown out in court. McCain must know these things, or he’s lost so much of his mental capacity the people of Arizona should remove him from office.

Let me state this very plainly for those who can’t remember their social studies and civics classes. The suspected incompetent NYC bomber, Faisal Shahzad, possesses certain rights from the mere fact of his being a legal resident and naturalized citizen of this country. Not telling him of those rights does not remove the rights. And, if he’s anything like the rest of us, he’s heard a version of the “Miranda Statement” a jillion times, besides being a naturalized citizen means he probably has actually studied the Constitution more than most natural-born citizens. But, and this is an important point, if the police fail to read him his rights and he then says something which could be considered incriminating, a judge may (not must, but may) disallow that statement from testimony. It all comes down to doing things the right way, so as to be more certain that a trial will bring about justice.

Meanwhile, Representative King (R-NY) says we should carefully consider where to place Mr. Shahzad before we indict him. I suppose that means the Congressman wants to leave open the possibility of sending Shahzad to a military detention facility and face a tribunal instead of a trial. Interestingly, those tribunals are incredibly inefficient, convicting only 3 people in nearly a decade – two of those people were later released during the Bush administration. During that same period, over 300 people were tried and convicted of terrorism charges in federal civilian courts. Sure seems to me, if you want to actually lock someone up for terrorism, you should try them in a federal court and lock them up in a federal super-maximum security prison when convicted. Nobody has ever escaped from a supermax prison. Ever.

Senator McCain would like to leave open the possibility that Shahzad will be released due to a piece of legal legerdemain, and Rep. King would like to lock Shahzad up in the most bizarre excuse for a legal system ever. Could the GOP come up with someone else to speak for them, please? It’s embarrassing, really.

Say you’re a Latino living in Arizona, who has a “contact” with the police.  They think you may be an illegal alien, and ask for your identification.  Turns out, there’s no law requiring any citizen to actually possess or carry identification with them.  What’s the next step for the police?

Oh, and by the way, police have always been allowed to check the immigration status of suspects, this just allows them to check the status of other people who have “contact” with the police.

Saw this headline today, and figured that is one they can recycle for every bill so long as the GOP is in the minority:

Republicans Unanimously Against Bill Being Brought to the Senate Floor This Week

No.

The annexation agreement does not include any language regarding secession. Neither does the state Constitution. There are the usual platitudes about the people being sovereign, but we saw how well that played out in 1860, didn’t we?

One of the other commonly cited “quirky facts” about Texas, that it can subdivide itself into up to 5 states at any time, is actually found in the annexation agreement. Of course, the US Constitution also states that any other state can split itself too. The difference being that the annexation agreement says Texas just needs to get permission from Texas, while any other state has to get permission from its government and the US Congress.

So, can Texas secede? Just as much as Virginia and Georgia can and no more. Good luck with that, Governor Perry.

A man’s mother told him that his son went missing, so he drove like an idiot, got arrested, is facing felony charges, and… April Fool! His son was never missing.  Mom is not getting flowers in May, I’m guessing.

The people screaming about high taxes this week are insane.  The simple truth is, taxes are low – lower than most of us have seen in our lifetimes.

According to the Tax Foundation, which actually does something called research and something else called math, there’s a simple method to determining how bad taxes are – Tax Freedom Day. This is the day when you’ve worked enough to have finished paying the government share of your labor and begin to earn the remainder. This year, it’s the second-earliest day in their records (which go back to before the Johnson administration); last year was the earliest. As of April 9th, on average, Americans have worked to pay off their tax burden for the year. That’s 99 days of 365 that we work just to pay the overhead (27% of our income goes to taxes of various types). Now, some might say that’s too high. If you believe that it is, fine – but you must be intellectually honest and realize that it’s less than you’ve ever paid in your life (for my generation anyway), and if you didn’t bitch about the tax burden in 2000 when you had to work until May 1st to hit Tax Freedom Day, you’re not being consistent.

On the other hand, spending is crazy. The main reason that Tax Freedom Day is so early this year is because we aren’t paying for what we’re buying. If we actually had to pay taxes that balanced the budget, Tax Freedom Day would be … wait for it… May 17th. Democrats can’t be fairly called “Tax and Spend liberals” right now – they’re more like “Don’t Tax and Spend Anyway crypto-liberals” instead. Only 1998-2001 were we paying the debt down instead of building it up. Heck of a way to balance a budget.

These dates are all averages, and are based on federal and state combined numbers. Each state has vastly different tax structures, so Alaskans get to start earning their own money on March 26th while folks in Connecticut have to wait until April 27th.

How is it possible for good liberals and progressives to (at least tacitly) approve of the recently leaked plans to assassinate an American citizen by the U.S. government? (This sort of situational ethics is not new. When the current President was campaigning for office, and while he was in the Senate, he was vehemently opposed to indefinite detention for any people without charges, much less U.S. citizens. Almost a year ago, he proposed formalizing the system of indefinite detention that he claimed (most would say rightly) was unconstitutional when done by his predecessor.) I find it hard to imagine how one could think that arresting someone and locking them up without habeas corpus is an absolute travesty, but then think it’s acceptable to target someone for a bullet to the head without even a trial.

I realize that Awlaki is seemingly not a nice person and almost certainly is fomenting violent actions against us. I would like him to be stopped. But, is it not more in keeping with the Constitution that President Obama once was expert in to target Awlaki for arrest rather than just shooting him whenever it’s convenient?

I know, it’s unfair and biased.  But funny!

You almost have to feel sorry for the Republican party this year. Their tactics of screaming loudly, encouraging their followers to scream incoherently, and basically kicking and yelling “no!” have failed to prevent the (watered down) health care reform bill from passing. Already, they plan to introduce legislation to repeal it. Since they could never produce more than a dozen pages of counterproposal, I suppose a “make it go away” bill is about the right length for their proven abilities.

One thing that seems to be a truism in American politics is that everyone is against government spending except when it is something they want.  Also, every new entitlement becomes an entrenched permanent benefit as soon as it becomes law.  Look at the fact that we still have tobacco farming subsidies, even while we do our darnedest to make tobacco usage less popular than a vampiric leper zombie.

Now that the health care reform bill has become law, the GOP is in the unenviable position of trying to reduce benefits and remove people’s health insurance. It’s easy to rant against the evils of socialism, all while ignoring that many of our institutions are socialized (police, fire, road work, military, yada yada). It’s a lot harder to tell people that, for their own good, you’re going to make it okay for insurance companies to more easily deny coverage to their sick mother. Not to mention, the CBO came out with their estimate that this bill will reduce the deficit, which makes the “it costs too much” rhetoric feel a little hokey.

Some of the provisions of the health care reform bill that become effective this year:

• Insurance companies can’t drop your coverage if you become sick while insured
• Parents can insure adult children up to 26 years old
• The Medicare “donut hole” will get a rebate, eventually becoming a solid bismarck-like holeless mass
• Children will not be barred for pre-existing conditions
• Lifetime coverage limits will be gone
• Small businesses will get a tax credit to help provide health insurance for their employees

Of course, John Boehner is upset that one other provision goes into effect this year: tanning beds get a 10% additional tax.  I love that taxes are seemingly randomly associated with anything they are meant to assist, but tanning salons? Weird.

So the GOP is going to be campaigning this year to repeal this law. They will be out there telling their constituents and voters that they want senior citizens to pay $250 more for their medication, that they want to deprive small businesses of a tax credit, that they want to deny coverage to little Jimmy with leukemia… yeah, that’ll work.

Some car dealers have installed “black boxes” in their new cars, which have the ability to shut off your car remotely, or honk the horn, when you’re late with a payment. What could possibly go wrong with that system?

I know that things which appear to be clusters are merely random stastical fluctuations, but if another Canadian child actor from the 80s dies this month, it’ll be freaky.

Corey Haim, 38. At least the vampires didn’t get him.

Once again, the War on (some) Drugs has been made to look stupid and petty by its very nature. This time around, a SWAT team busted into a family’s house, shot their two dogs (one of them a very threatening Corgi), arrested the father and traumatized a child. And the big bad druggies they busted? Oh, they were caught with what the police describe as a “small amount” of marijuana. The parents have been charged with possession and with child endangerment. The possession charge is a misdemeanor.

Just to be perfectly clear here – the police believe that possessing a small amount of marijuana is child endangerment, but shooting two family pets in front of that same child is perfectly reasonable behavior.

Apparently the opening speaker of the Tea Party Convention is openly courting racists. Tom Tancredo, who is cuckoo for illegal aliens, started off the proceedings by claiming that President Obama was only elected because people who can’t say “vote” in English elected him. Wow, we must have an awful lot of non-English speakers in the USA, to have over 50% of the vote like that. And then he appeals to people to take back America from “them” – whoever they might be.

I find it interesting that all of Tancredo’s grandparents were immigrants (legal presumably) and yet he’s still so unabashedly xenophobic in his rhetoric. Just for full disclosure, my father’s family immigrated to this continent before the USA was founded (by over a century), and I somehow was capable of pronouncing the word “vote” and casting it for Obama.

Oh, and real socialists most assuredly do not consider this president one of them. At this point, many liberals are saying he’s not even one of them.

A year after I posted the “with and without stimulus” economist projection, it’s interesting to see how things have actually panned out.

What expert economists said they expected:

What actually happened:

You can see that the projection was that we’d peak at around 8% unemployment, with the stimulus that was proposed. A much smaller stimulus was put into place, and it peaked about 10% instead. But, the projections also said we’d see see a plateau and reduction in unemployment right around the beginning of 2010, and we did. So, it’s been a bit worse than projected, but it’s turning around right on schedule. Of course, it’s still too early to see if this plateau is done and we’re actually recovering, or if we’re just going to plateau until the end of 2010, which would be what was projected to happen without any government intervention. That would suck.

Thank you, California, for finally diverting some of the “oh no they didn’t” attention from Texas. Menifee, a town in Riverside County, has decided to pull the Webster Collegiate Dictionary from their school library, because it has definitions of terms like “oral sex” and the poor children just can’t handle such things. Seriously, didn’t everyone flip through the dictionary looking for dirty words, just because you could? Our children are not so delicate and easily bruised, people!

Is Menifee in the 909?

A student at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee was walking home from work when four men pulled him into an alley and forced him to lie face-down with a gun to his neck. They took everything from his pockets, but when the gang leader looked in the victim’s wallet and saw an Army Reserve ID card, he told his accomplices to give him his stuff back. “The guy continued to say throughout the situation that he respects what I do and at one point he actually thanked me and he actually apologized,” the unidentified 21-year-old victim said. “The leader of the group actually walked back [and] gave me a quick fist bump.” Police note that 10 minutes later, the gang robbed another man, who had a Department of Corrections inmate ID in his wallet. They didn’t give him his wallet back.