Life has been kicking my butt

And when that happens, blogging is the first to go.  Work has gotten extremely busy (never a shortage of providers ripping off TennCare); adjusting to going to class and studying has been an adventure (I’m taking this far more seriously than I did when I was at Kansas or Vanderbilt); and trying to maintain a regular exercise schedule and proper diet along with trying to maintain routines so my mild OCD isn’t too much of a problem takes a lot of effort.  I’ve missed giving the world the benefit of my insight on the pressing issues of the day.

Here’s the brief version:

1. The much discussed Obama administration job application has 9 questions about taxes.  Were Geithner, Daschle, Killefer and Solis not required to respond to the questions, did they they provide inaccurate answers or were their answers accurate but ignored?  We should demand release of their responses.
2. Ashley Judd’s attack on Sarah Palin for aerial wolf shooting is silly.  The practice is a legal and appropriate means of controlling predators in order to preserve the caribou and moose population so that the locals can put food on the table.  Judd & friends need to grow up.
3. Michael Phelps puts the lie to the ONDCP’s Burrito Taster ad, which ends with the tag line, “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.”  Radly Balko started a list, to which many names were added, of gainfully employed pot smokers.
4. The latest Miley Cyrus photo controversy is silly.
5. I agree with this guy and his post, “The Survivors Of US Airways Flight 1549 Make Me Hate People.”
6. Health care is not a right, it’s a luxury.  To believe that health care is a right is to believe in slavery – someone must be forced to work to pay for it or provide it.
7. Capping executive pay a $500,000 has appeal, every dime of taxpayer money should be spent carefully and as openly as possible, but it has problems.  Talented help needed in times of crisis will leave.  The cap is only for executive pay.  People below executive positions make vast sums of money that could just as easily be said to come from bailout funds.  In some situations, their actions have as much or more to do with company performance as the executives.

That does it for now.  Hopefully, I can return to the keyboard on a regular basis soon.

 

Another drug war success

Since 2005, when state law made it difficult for law abiding citizens and criminals alike to purchase the legal product peusoephedrine, the number of meth labs in Tennessee has increased.  2008 saw a 21% increase in the number of meth labs busted in Tennessee over the previous year.   The individual labs are smaller, but more numerous.  Drug manufacturers are getting around purchase quantity limits by sending “smurfers” out to several stores to get what is needed.

Note the last line of that story: “Purchase of just 9 grams of the product in an allotted time is enough to charge someone with intent to manufacture meth.”  Don’t let granny stock up.  She’ll get a SWAT team busting down her door at 4:00 a.m. and her dog will be the first one shot!

Thank you Tennessee legislators for once again setting aside common sense in order to appear tough on crime.

 

Unlocking some money

States are talking about releasing prisoners early and removing people from supervised parole in order to save money.  Gov. Schwarzenegger is proposing that  up to 15,000 nonviolent prisoners be released early.  Kentucky has released 2000, including some violent offender.  This should be a “duh” moment for law makers and zealous law-and-order types.  We can’t afford over penalizing non-violent crimes.

We need to end mandatory minimum sentences and end the drug war.  Mandatory minimums were intended to ensure that equal crimes receive equal punishment.  The problem is that few crimes are equal and, again, we just can’t afford it.  If we end the drug war we can significantly reduce the size of goverment (a drug peace dividend?) and generate income from sales taxes on drugs.  (We could also ensure more even quality in drugs, thus removing one of the current health risks from recreational pharmaceuticals.)

While saving money, reducing government, we would also increase liberty allow individuals more control over their own lives.

 

Remember this phrase

Doctors in Hong Kong have reported that the “widely abused” club drug Ketamine, also known as Special K, can causes problem with the bladder and throughout the urinary tract.  (Note: they encountered 57 patients over an 8 year period.  Since this was a study based on patients presenting to the hospital, there is no way that they controlled for other factors.  Also, if it is so widely “abused” one has to wonder why more patients with these symptoms haven’t presented.)

Here’s the part to remember: “Street-ketamine abuse is not only a drug problem but might be associated with a serious urological condition causing a significant burden to healthcare resources,” Dr. Peggy Sau-Kwan Chu and colleagues write in the medical journal BJU International.

Expect to hear that logic more.  Hong Kong has socialized medicine.  As socialized medicine spreads, control of our behavior will be increasingly premised on costs to the public fisc and the strain on limited resources.  How far will it go?  After all, is it fair for you to eat that fried chicken when I might have to pay for your bypass surgery?

 

Raising millions to solve crisises, at least in part, government created

Tonight, the 3 1/2 hour event American Idol Gives Back raised millions for people in need around the world. Sadly, much of that money could be diverted to other needs if our government would get out of the way. In a message about the Children’s Defense Fund, we learned that every 4 minutes, a child is arrested for a drug offense. Throughout the evening, we heard about the horrors of malaria.

Two solutions: return to the use of DDT and end the war on drugs.

 

<strike> How would the Baptists and Church of Christers feel about one of these in Nashville? </strike>

From FoxNews.com:

LOS ANGELES — A minister with mail order credentials was found guilty Thursday of distributing marijuana through his Hollywood church.

The Rev. Craig X Rubin, 41, the leader of the 420 Temple, who has appeared in episodes of the Showtime comedy “Weeds,” faces up to four years, eight months in prison for possessing marijuana for sale, said Jane Robison, a district attorney’s spokeswoman.

Rubin and some 400 members of his church believe marijuana is a religious sacrament and burn and smoke pot during services.

I wonder if they substitute Doritos for communion wafers?

Update: This was intended to be silly/snarky. Instead it is offensive/uninformed. If I knew how to do a strike through of the headline, I would.

 

40% is big, right?

The CNN lede:

 Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.

The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.

Always watch out  for those stories of “increases risk by x%.”  You first need to know what the original risk was then calculate the new, alleged risk.  But, before we get there, note:

The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.

So why are we even talking about this?  Oh yeah, the popular “all drugs are bad” meme needs constant feeding and watering.  But, the numbers are tough to get worked up about.

 The prevalence of schizophrenia is believed to be about five in 1,000 people.

In other words, you have a .5% chance of developing schizophrenia.  Even though pot smoking hasn’t been shown to cause any psychosis, your post toke risk of developing schizophrenia sky rockets to .7%  Dude, that’s making me nervous.  I think I could use a . . .

 

Politician stupidity on display, vol. 1

WASHINGTON (AP) — Border Patrol agents should be allowed to shoot at fleeing drug traffickers, a Republican senator suggested Tuesday.

The patrol’s deadly force rules were questioned at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing concerning the conviction of two agents who shot a fleeing, unarmed drug trafficker and covered it up.

“Why is it wrong to shoot the [trafficker] after he’s been told to stop?” asked Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma.

Er, maybe the person isn’t really a drug dealer? We still have innocent until proven guilty? Drug dealing isn’t a capitol offense? The U.S. government creates the black market for illegal drugs by refusing to legalize them? I’m sure there are more obvious reasons. Anyone care to add some?

(h/t Instapundit)

 

A bottle of tranquilizers

Oklahoma City is unburying a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried half a century ago under this city’s courthouse lawn.  The story is interesting on a variety of levels.  But the detail that caught my eye was in this sentence:

Also buried with it were 10 gallons of gasoline – in case internal combustion engines became obsolete by 2007 – a case of beer, and the contents of a typical woman’s handbag placed in the glove compartment: 14 bobby pins, a bottle of tranquilizers, a lipstick, a pack of gum, tissues, a pack of cigarettes, matches and $2.43.

Apparently, in 1957, the typical woman was carrying a bottle of tranquilizers in her purse.  That must have helped quite a bit in maintaining peace at home.  Sometimes I feel like I’d support the widespread distribution of tranquilizers.

 

This explains so much

Psychology Today reports a source of happiness.  Surely this effect isn’t just limited to women.

The finding that women who do not use condoms during sex are less depressed and less likely to attempt suicide than are women who have sex with condoms and women who are not sexually active, leads one researcher to conclude that semen contains powerful-and potentially addictive-mood-altering chemicals.

This calls for more research!