The contrarian leader has some fine policy changes to put in place that will rationalize a lot of the injustice created by current US drug policy. Simple things like:
School Principals who enforce zero-tolerance policies must get written permission from one of their students before taking an aspirin or any other medication (any time of day or night).
There are a bunch more.
Via Pacific Views.
Looks like the Italian Mafia may be taking some lessons from the US Gov/IRS:
Libero Grassi, owner of a thriving textile company outside Palermo, was killed in 1991 after he refused to pay a large monthly “pizzo,” the Sicilian word for an extortion payment.
The new strategy is to avoid exorbitant rates, such as the ones applied to Grassi’s factory, but to cast the protection net much further afield, even to small shopkeepers.
Yep, if you kill them they will not be around to pay you tomorrow. A much better method is to expropriate their assets and perhaps dump persistent refuseniks in jail.
And like much government and its tax collectors:
It means the Mafia selling itself as a fact of life, even a benevolent association that helps find a job or fix a problem. This makes it not just a criminal organization but a criminal phenomenon rooted in history and harder to extirpate.
It has long seemed that one reason the politician gangs have pretended to want to eliminate folks like the mafia is that they want the same business themselves: extortion taxes, your local lottery, etc.
Via Catallarchy.
Over at Ebay you can pay good money for one of those free Google Gmail accounts. As Tyler Cowan notes “..right now supply is limited. Not surprisingly, a market in the accounts has arisen.”
Maybe the buyers think getting one will give them an inside track on getting a share of Google stock; or that they can get a special username that they can then resale at a profit; or bragging rights amongst some alien species; or…well, just why are they spending this money?
I’ll wait until they are readily available and then get one or two for ad hoc needs. They can sit on the shelf with my other freemail accounts for use as needed.
Yes, we are also protected from acquiring undersized tomatoes. And here we have a second reason why grape tomatoes are illegal. They’re too small ( freedom from size limits is only for cherry tomatoes or those in trusses ) and they are not sold in trusses…….
So there we have it, in the 4 years since the EU last passed a regulation about tomatoes, a completely new type has arisen which virtually wipes out the type they last amended the regulation for. Wouldn’t it be simpler simply not to have the regulation ?
Makes sense to me.
Via Virginia Postrel.
Radley Balko warns of creeping nanny-statism:
The California state assembly is now considering a law banning you from smoking in your own car if your kids are riding with you.
Make no mistake, they’ll be in your home next.
Radley, you are correct. There shouldn’t be any additional laws necessary regarding this. Assault it pretty straightforward and the kids could certainly sue concurrently or later. It shouldn’t take many assault convictions and successful law suits to pretty much eliminated this problem.
I consider adults who smoke in cars or even in their homes with accompanying children to be a bit senseless, if not stupid.
On the other hand, if it is a privately owned establishment that is clearly labeled as a smoking environment then consenting adults should be free to patononize or work there without any outside interference.