But, could someone help me with the history that backs this up:
George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: “No President has ever done more for human rights than I have.”
Auletta’s story should be up at The New Yorker tomorrow.
Via The Gamer’s Nook.
Number 5 on Alternet’s list of the Top Ten Drug Stories of 2003 is this:
5) The FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report reveals that police arrested an estimated 697,082 persons for marijuana violations in 2002, or nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States. This amounts to one marijuana-related arrest every 45 seconds.
The total number of marijuana arrests far exceeded the total number of arrests for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Hmmm, I know this math isn’t perfect but with a swag: decriminalize marijuana use and sales and then lay off 1/3 of local, state and federal law enforcement employees.
Or, put them to work doing something that actually helps to protect our lives and property.
Additional fringe benefits: reduced load in judicial system and increased housing available in the prison system.
Back in time, before the new year, Patrick Hayden made a brief mention of a book review including a short quote from the review.
And that post took on a life of its own with the discussion, now 161 comments, still ongoing.
Hey, if the title subjects got you this far you will want to spend the time (and it will be more then a few minutes) reading that comment thread. As Eric Burns says:
The discussion is fascinating because of the sheer plethora of authorities contributing to it. Scientists, futurists, fans, literary critics — there’s something of everything in it, and the content of the discussion is unusually high for the web.
Oh yes, the review was of Heinlein’s first novel, unpublished until now, For Us, The Living.
Full disclosure: I have not read it yet.
This photo of Toronto reminded me of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
Photo is from the daily dose of imagery. There are many other cool pictures at this site…check’m out.
No matter your politics you should be outraged by this:
That’s all they had: guilt by the most remote of computer- generated associations. But, according to Attorney General John Ashcroft, that was more than enough to justify Arar’s delivery to Syria’s torturers.
Besides, Ashcroft added, the torturers had expressly promised that they would not torture him.
Our intelligence agencies have a name for this torture-by-proxy. They call it “extraordinary rendition.” As one intelligence official explained: “We don’t kick the s — out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s — out of them.”
This secret program for torturing suspects has been authorized, if that is the right word for it, by a secret presidential finding. Where the president gets the authority to have anyone tortured has never been explained.
Read Maher Arar’s story here.
Brad Delong thinks this is worth an impeachment and Brian Weatherson wonders how many conservative bloggers will condone this behavior and thinks that the perps should at minimum spend time in jail.
I’ll go along with Brad on the impeachment idea.