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.
Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein both seem to think a draft is ok.
They may want to head over here right now and practice signing up.
Via Radically Inept.
Jane Galt has stirred up a hornet’s nest of disagreement with this call for rummies resignation:
the only way to repair the damage is for responsibility to be taken at the highest levels. And not the fake “I’m accountable but I’m not going to, y’know, be called to account” responsibility of Janet Reno, but real, honest to God, “Somethine went wrong on my watch, and I will suffer the penalty” responsibility. For the good of his country, it is time for Don Rumsfeld to go.
Her commenters are near unanimous in their disagreement and there is a lot of other disagreement as well, e.g., James Joyner. I certainly agree with Jane that responsibility must be taken to the highest levels (see previous post) and I’m sure you can find others who agree with one aspect or another of her call.
One of the arguments that has been made against the call for resignation is that cabinet heads like rummie are too far away from the action to be held accountable though both Skippy (via the Progress Report) and the Washington Post call this into question with respect to rummie.
Brian Doss also works through this argument and ultimately comes to the conclusion that there just might be a positive light at the end of his executive hari kari discussion. Long quote follows:
No, you can’t get it quite yet but here is much more then you ever wanted to know about the proposed UK national ID card.
You should read this as this discussion will be coming to the country where you live sooner rather then later.