3,200 Vials in Half a Day

This is what counts for "progress" in the drug war. Just look at the video on the Sun's website. Like I always say, this is a joke.

Imagine for a moment that the government was trying to stem the flow oranges into the country. Well, this would be the equivalent of seizing 20 crates of Oranges, while billions still make into supermarkets across the nation.

Will this arrest in any way reduce the availability of heroin in Baltimore? Of course not, not even for half a day.

Will another distribution operation, one that is even smarter and more secretive than before, pop up in the next few days. Of course it will.

Will these criminals be kept in jail, unable to peddle drugs for at least a few years?

Hill pleaded guilty to an intent-to-distribute charge in 2004, and received a suspended sentence with probation. The year after, he violated his probation and was ordered to spend a year in prison, electronic court records show.

Burton was charged with drug possession last June and was given one-year probation by a city District Court judge. That probation ended July 24.

Who can be sure?

After more than a MONTH of extremely expensive surveillance and thousands of man hours, the police have effectively done NOTHING.

Such is progress.

Update: By the way, if anyone in Baltimore, Annapolis, or DC want to really do something about drugs and violence associated with their illegal status, try legalization.

Roughly speaking, therefore, there have been two periods with high homicide rates in U.S. history, the 1920-1934 period and the 1970-1990 period (Friedman 1991). Both before the first episode and between these two episodes, homicide rates were relatively low or clearly declining. Prima facie, this pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that alcohol prohibition increased violent crime: homicide rates are high in the 1920-1933 period, when constitutional prohibition of alcohol was in effect; the homicide rate drops quickly after 1933, when Prohibition was repealed; and the homicide rate remains low for a substantial period thereafter. Further, the homicide rate is low during the 1950s and early 1960s, when drug prohibition was in existence but not vigorously enforced, but high in the 1970-1990 period, when drug prohibition was enforced to a relatively stringent degree (Miron 1999).

(image and caption originally posted at EH.net encyclopedia)

Bloggers Union? Give me a break.

I agree with Oliver Willis. I guess I can understand the importance to paid bloggers who work for candidates, parties, organizations, or corporations, of having their needs taken care of.

However, for most of us, blogging is not something we are paid for or ever plan to be paid for. A small number of bloggers may make enough income from ads to blog full time, but in that case, who needs a union? In fact, I find the suggestion insulting to unions for REAL workers. Perhaps the blogosphere can worry about helping to start unions for real professions that need them. Salaried writers at educational development houses perhaps (heh), or any number of real jobs (yeah, I said it) that need union representation. Its insulting that labor unions would even consider adding bloggers, when so many other professions are lacking any adequate support. All I know, is that my recent emails to publishers and writer's unions have been ignored. Perhaps if I told them I was blogger, they would have written back.

Like Oliver said, a REALLY BAD IDEA.

Kane on "Banning the Box"

Discrimination against applicants because of a felony conviction isn't like discrimination based on race. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous quote is about his wanting his children to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

If a felony conviction - and answering questions honestly about that conviction - isn't about the content of your character, I'd like to know what the heck is.

Sometimes, Gregory Kane makes sense.