The remains of Detroit. Some great photos of abandoned urbania.
Ethan Nadelmann and John Walters faced off in the Wall Street Journal on the topic of drug prohibition last week. Also, be sure to see my colleague Jacob Sullum’s disassembling of Walter’s piece.
John Stewart says MSNBC is the new Fox. Kinda’ glad Stewart made this joke, though. The Daily Show is going to have to adapt its own politics a bit to stay relevant the next four years.
Scientists stick up for the use of brain-boosting drugs.
RIAA really must have the worst PR department of any lobbying group in the country.
More sex crime stupidity: Kid still paying for sexual assault charge of rubbing up against an eight-year-old while he was 10.
The L.A. Times has an in-depth piece on the Maryland state trooper who illegally infiltrated and spied on nonviolent protest groups, then had some activists designated as terrorists.
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on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 7:26 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
Jon Stewart is often criticized for humor that has only one political perspective. This is an unfair criticism. Though Stewart is obviously left of center, humor found on The Daily Show is more often than not an equal opportunity employer.
Sure, most of the humor over the last eight years has often been directed at Bush and his fellow Republicans, but you can’t blame them for hitting the slot machine that pays off in spades.
Criticizing Stewart and company for a seemingly being one sided is like criticizing someone for getting wet while playing in the rain.
My guess is that Stewart will have no problem finding humor in the next four+ years.
Cheers.
Regarding the last story about the cops spying on protest groups, my gut feeling is that the only thing unusual about it is that they clumsily got caught. I’m a big believer in the tip-of-the-iceberg characterization of domestic spying on U.S. citizens and I don’t think that’s an alarmist perspective.
While the vast majority of people in the U.S. naively view government as a benevolent protector, no one believes that more than the government itself, giving them all the justification they need to do anything they see as being “in the best interests of the country”.
[...] there a Double Agent at the RIAA? Posted on December 8, 2008 by Aunt B. Courtesy of Radley Balko, we learn that the RIAA is taking after a girl too sick and too poor to defend herself. At this [...]
So, regarding the RIAA, I note that they don’t say they didn’t do it. Just that it’s “not fair”, because they don’t have a lot of money.
“I mean, it’s so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn’t do. It’s not fair.”
Quote from the linked article. So, it appears she does claim that she didn’t do it.
It’s nice to see Stewart calling MSNBC out on that. Olbermann and company spend a lot of time picking on Fox, but if they stopped to listen to themselves they would realize that they are what they criticize.
Maryland Spying: I’m sure it’s just the drugs talking, but it sure seems like domestic spying by every government agency runs unchecked until massive court cases are won to stop them (and then they just move on to the next technology).
Surely no bad can come from a nation that spies endlessly on its citizens. No historical references exist.
Question: With all the records being set for nation-wide layoffs, one sector has been absent from what I’ve read: Government. Does anyone know of a report on how much government payrolls has shrunk since September? I mean, they must be reducing as well, right?
Sorry, don’t know where else to post this.
Stewart is pretty honest when he pokes fun at people. He even took time to poke fun at Obama’s cabinet. I don’t agree with his politics very much, but he never gives anyone a free pass.
The sex offender laws are out of control. It was bad enough when the religous right called you immoral and a heathen for sexual activity, but now the liberal & conservative nanny-state coalition can lock up any teenager, becuase his or her partner will more than likely be under 18. Only a vicious sadist can rationalize treating 10 year old kids as sexual predators. Are we going to lock up kids for fraud and make them felons if they try to doctor their report cards when they get bad grades? These laws have created more criminals and more victims than there ever were before.
More great Detroit pics, including lots of the urban prairie at detroitblog.org.
I’ve always thought the timing of the Kilborn-Stewart transition on the Daily Show was perfect because Kilborn’s smarmy egotist schtick was well-suited for the Clinton years while Stewart’s more biting satire better complemented the Bush II administration. Kinda makes me wonder if now would be a good time to bring in a third host. Unfortunately, the most obvious choice (Colbert) probably isn’t going to give up his current job.
So, regarding the RIAA, I note that they don’t say they didn’t do it. Just that it’s “not fair”, because they don’t have a lot of money.
And it’s not untrue. There are probably millions of people who have shared songs on the Internet, and they decide that the one who really needs suing is a broke 19-year-old transplant patient? The law’s on their side, but it’s still a dick move.
As far as using drugs to boost the brain and attention,the U.S. Air Force has done this for years.The call them ‘go’ pills.If it’s good enough for a to fly a 2 billion dollar B-2,it’s good enough for regular folk.
David’s right on. I think Radley’s point is that people have such strong feelings against the RIAA because they consistently make stupid strategic decisions. If the RIAA did their homework and went after either (1) people who they could affirmatively show were actively downloading and sharing large volumes of music, or (2) people burning and selling pirated CDs, people would probably be much less inclined to hate them. But going after a hospitalized teenager with an $8.50-an-hour working mom for sharing 10 songs, with a likely fine at $7500 (minimum statutory damages) is pretty stupid.
The Maryland State Police are retarded. That’s the word for it. They are a bunch of retards.
Stewart has always said the media is his main target. Fox has just provided most of the meat for the past 8 years. He practically took down Crossfire on CNN himself for hurting America.
Regarding this MSP infiltration of protest groups: I can’t help wondering how much background research the police did before conducting this operation. You would think that a crime database search and maybe some judicious Googling would have given the cops a pretty good idea of which groups and individuals were likely to be violent or disruptive and which weren’t. If a person or organization has a proven history of violence or advocating violent protest, then by all means keep them on your radar. If they don’t, then leave them the hell alone.
This kind of reminds me of the no-knock raids issue. Can’t the police investigate their target ahead of a raid to find out whether that person is a violent criminal or likely to be violent – and therefore whether a SWAT-style raid is even justified? I thought that’s the kind of thing police detectives got paid for.
Sex offender laws are stupid. I saw a website not too long ago that listed a bunch of ridiculous cases under the title, “You might be a sex offender if…”
The end result is that everyone might be a sex offender. A lot of it was teenagers having sex, and one case of a guy looking at a kid too long. So even if you’ve never had sex you still might be a sex offender.
So, regarding the RIAA, I note that they don’t say they didn’t do it. Just that it’s “not fair”, because they don’t have a lot of money.
Actually, the girl says, “I mean, it’s so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn’t do. It’s not fair.”
So, yes, she says she didn’t do it. But even if she did, see David and Eric, above.
On reading his Reason article, It seems to me that Mr. Sullum disassembled rather than dissembled.
From the article:
“I already have severe depression,” the story has [the girl] saying. “I mean, it’s so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn’t do. It’s not fair.”
John Walters’ piece in the Journal had a great line-
‘And driving down the availability of dangerous drugs requires all the skills of agencies such as the DEA and local law enforcement. None of these approaches can work if drugs are simply legal.’
I’ve never seen the word ‘skills’ used to describe these bullshit agencies!
The father of the 10 year old said that being on the sex offender list would “haunt” him. A ghost would be preferable. That kid would never have a chance. The sex offender data base is the modern version of the scarlet letter. Once you’re tatooed you’re screwed.
Apparently no one pays attention to Les Miserables or any other of a hundred parables, stories, etc. that rail against this idea of a permanent mark.
Jean Valjean is one of the ultimate “scarlet” letters. His of course was his “Yellow ticket of leave” he had to show everywhere he went which branded him a convict helping to make sure he never could turn over a new leaf.
In line with David and Eric above, regarding the girl being targeted by the RIAA…
You start to wonder if the RIAA *looks* for people who are basically broke already, because they can’t really put up a defense. The basic premise of the RIAA actions regarding infringement have typically been “Find someone who we can threaten to make life hell for and get them to settle, then trumpet our ‘success’ loudly and proudly.” So they don’t ever go after someone who could afford to fight them. They don’t go after people with ready access to publicity. They go after kids and moms and people with diseases, and say ‘well they broke the laaaaawwwwww!!!!‘. And they never really get that they look like complete ass-clowns as they do this.
andyinsdca, good call. I’ve been reading that site for a long time.
“Regarding this MSP infiltration of protest groups: I can’t help wondering how much background research the police did before conducting this operation. You would think that a crime database search and maybe some judicious Googling would have given the cops a pretty good idea of which groups and individuals were likely to be violent or disruptive and which weren’t. ”
Police do a lot of research as part of their work of course, but most of them probably didn’t join to reseach specifically, they joined to catch bad guys. Their mindset is to find something wrong in what they’re looking at. If they can’t find anything wrong, they figure they aren’t looking hard enough. To someone who actually enjoys research, finding out a group is harmless is as big a thrill as finding out one is full of “bad guys”. The puzzle is what matters, not the outcome.
So I repeat my question from an earlier thread: is there any evidence that those few departments with dedicated researcher or analyst units have fewer mistaken raids, or do such units not help at all? I am biased to think yes, but I’d love to know one way or the other.
On the subject of ‘Drug Czars’ —
http://gawker.com/5104734/new-drug-czar-wants-you-to-get-aids