Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.29

WWII... exactly as it happened.

When you look at the financial crisis, the BP oil spill, and various problems over the last decade, is the problem you see one of too much government regulations? If so, get checked for a concussion or some other form of massive brain bleeding. On the other hand, you'll be really receptive to the GOP platform. John Boehner is proposing what he calls the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny), which effectively subjects every regulatory action that costs over $100 million to Senate filibuster. I mean a Senate vote. Which effectively means any decent regulatory structure will be tied up in an unending morass of Senatorial hubris. But on the bright side, allowing industry to run unchecked hasn't resulted in a major catastrophe in the last week. That's got to be some sort of a record. Good luck, GOP.

I'm going to have to get up off the fainting couch, but I'm fairly sure our government actually made a semi-progressive and intelligent step forward in the farcical War on Drugs. Finally noting and changing the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine and realizing how that affected sentencing disparities between blacks and whites, poor and rich. It must have been purely accidental on the part of lawmakers and I'm sure they'll get around to correcting it once someone explains to them what they did. Now, if we can just get them to accidentally make progress on marijuana laws and the entirety of the War on Drugs....

So our appointed better, the Pay Czar, has taken a look at the wanton cash grabbing and money fights our corporate masters have been getting into and has deemed their pay practices lacking. So let's see, he finds that 17 financial firms that have been bailed out are also engaging in pay practices that are "ill-advised" and "exhibited bad judgment". So what's he going to do? Nothing, of course. Theorizing that going after such money would have been contrary to the public interest. Of course. So... all you're telling us is big financial giants are fucking around and getting rich off our dime? We already knew that! The point of a Pay Czar was to find out to what extent and do something about it. Oh sorry, he offered up some voluntary guidelines that they may or may not choose to follow. My bad. Everything's fixed now. Sorry to sound like I was complaining.

In the fight over immigration, many have been appalled at some of the tactics that states like Arizona have taken and the lengths to which supporters of Arizona's laws have gone to justify them. But that's before we learned one important fact: the Bible is for busting in the heads of Mexican interlopers. Yea and the Lord said unto Zedekiah "Them fucking' Mexicans are taking our jobs. Roust them the fuck out of here." It's in Paul's Letters to the Thessalonian John Birch Society. Sure, but what does God think about excessive government regulation?

In This is Kind of Interesting News, Chicago Mag has a story by Myra Daniels on her husband, sixties ad man Draper Daniels, the inspiration for Mad Men's Don Draper. While it does provide a good look into how the ad business worked back then, there's no word if Daniel's life and emotional state oddly synced up with the prevailing political and historical changes of the time. I'd like to read about the proto-Sterling, but that man probably drank himself to death in the fifties.

The sham that is Glenn Beck and those phony buy Gold/"Gold coins are the only way to protect yourself from the black President's inflation" companies... in graphic form. This is why I store my money under my mattress. Or I would if I had any money. Or a mattress.

For the child at heart: photoshops of the Pope in a hat.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.26

How America Lost the War on Drugs
Ben Wallace-Wells of Rolling Stone traces America's failure/loss in the War on Drugs. How did we lose? To make a long story short: by fighting it. Among the highlights: RAND researchers finding out 13 years ago that the best way to reduce drug usage was treatment and education, not South American bombing campaigns and guerrilla wars. The study has never been implemented. Good times.

Progressive Caucus Finds Itself In A Strange Place: Power
HuffPo looks at the strange new thing rippling through the Democratic party: progressives and liberals who are taken seriously by the party establishment. My God, the horror. Mainly it has to do with them sticking to their guns (for once) on the issue of a public health insurance option. If a decent health care plan gets passed (HA!!) these are going to be the dirty liberal sons of bitches to thank.

NFL targeting binge drinking among fans in new season
Oh NFL, this means war. First you pussy up the game with more judgment calls about intent and hitting hard, then you continue to subject us to the commercial torments of John Cougar Mellencamp, and now you have the nerve to try to fight our ability to get blackout drunk in a parking lot at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning or go to the concession stand in the 3rd quarter and come back with seven 28 ounce beers? Damn your evil eyes, Roger Goodell, damn them to hell. Hell is, incidentally, a Detroit Lions vs. Cleveland Browns week 16 match-up played over and over endlessly on a black and white TV.

Public Opinion and Gay Marriage
Some number crunchers have taken a look at gay marriage and have found out that not only has support for destroying Jesus' carefully written marriage laws becoming more popular, but that after gay marriage is legalized in a state it becomes even more popular. If we don't stop this menace what's next? Complete tolerance? No thank you, I already have enough weddings to go to.

Jeremy Scahill Slams Chuck Todd, Media, Congress Over Blackwater On "Real Time With Bill Maher" (VIDEO)
God bless you Mr. Scahill, three worthier targets for scorn could not be found. Mostly his outrage (outrage that is available in paperback) stems from the fact that no one in our pampered media elite or any of our elected betters seems to find it noteworthy or important that Blackwater is employed as a "Christian supremacist fighting force to eliminate Muslims and destroy Islam globally, and then they bill taxpayers again for this killing that they're doing and they're not held to the same standard as soldiers." That and they might also murder whistle-blowers on American soil. Chuck Todd's response: Waaaaaaaaaah. That's right dear media, everyone who thinks that extra legal mercenary fighting forces are bad are the crazy ones.

Pennsylvania is shitfaced

To the surprise of neither Matthew or myself, our home state of Pennsylvania set a personal record for alcohol consumption over the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Sales at Pennsylvania's state-operated Wine & Spirits stores reached a record $1.84 billion in fiscal year 2008-09, the Liquor Control Board announced today.

There are plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for this admirable performance. For one, alcohol consumption tends to rise as the economy worsens and unemployment increases. Second, over this time, three major PA-based professional sports franchises (ed note: two in Pittsburgh, one in Philadelphia) had deep playoff runs capped with championships. Third, Matthew lives there and I tend to visit a few times each year. Makes perfect sense.

Oh, and don't forget to file under "Apparently Without Irony" the following comments by State Liquor Control Board Chairman, Patrick Stapleton.

"Our success is all the more important to Pennsylvania taxpayers when you consider the $494.5 million in taxes and profits the Liquor Control Board transferred to the General Fund to help pay for essential services, such as public safety, education, transportation and health care."

...none of which were the least bit affected by record-setting liquor sales, we assure you.

h/t Jimbo

Headline of the day

Mexico cocaine 'hidden in sharks'

Drug sharks > drug mules.

Chump change

Want to know exactly how much local, state and federal governments are spending on health, justice, family assistance, and "education" because of the concerted effort to treat drugs/tobacco/alcohol as a reactionary problem of not enough prisons and hospitals instead of one of treatment, research, and prevention? Since it was done by a national research organization at an Ivy League school and was written about in the New York Times complete with charts and graphics, I'm going to guess the number is large. Like half a trillion a year large.

Government spending related to smoking and the abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs reached $468 billion in 2005, accounting for more than one-tenth of combined federal, state and local expenditures for all purposes, according to a new study.

Most abuse-related spending went toward direct health care costs for lung disease, cirrhosis and overdoses, for example, or for law enforcement expenses including incarceration, according to the report released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, a private group at Columbia University. Just over 2 percent of the total went to prevention, treatment and addiction research. The study is the first to calculate abuse-related spending by all three levels of government.

“This is such a stunning misallocation of resources,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman of the center, referring to the lack of preventive measures. “It’s a commentary on the stigma attached to addictions and the failure of governments to make investments in the short run that would pay enormous dividends to taxpayers over time.”

Beyond resulting in poor health and crime, addictions and substance abuse — especially alcohol — are major underlying factors in other costly social problems like homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse.

"Stunning misallocation of resources". Apparently Mr. Califano hasn't noticed this country starts wars on whims and throws trillions at Wall Street to thank them for almost destroying the world economy. Half a tril because our drugs policy is "Lock 'em up" , our health policy is "The existence of emergency rooms, for when you get really close to death, is equal to comprehensive health care", and our governmental notions of preventative measures is "Ain't that what them European socialists do? No thanks" is a drop in the bucket. And "failure of governments to make investments in the short run"? Maybe you didn't notice during this economic crisis: we have problems acting in the short run.

But thanks for showing us just what our policies cost us each year. I'm sure it will result in something productive from government. Like more prisons with higher walls and stronger bars, more mandatory minimums, and finding out a better way to tax people well on their way to a cirrhosis and lung cancer filled death/medical bankruptcy. You know, because "treatment" and "preventative measures" sound really gay in a heated primary fight.

War on the war on drugs

Uh-oh. Someone is talking about the war on drugs in a way that's serious and seeks to address the real problems behind drug use, incarceration, and trafficking. What a shame, I give it two weeks before the clamor of complaints forces him to resign. Shame Obama had to bring rationality, facts, and a plan to move away from a track that clearly has failed into this serious debate by serous people who all know the only way to deal with the hophead is through mandatory minimums, guerrilla action in foreign countries, and more prisons.

The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation's drug issues.
...
Mr. Kerlikowske's comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate -- and likely more controversial -- stance on the nation's drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment's role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

A such they want to do things like change the disparity in sentences for crack vs. cocaine, funding needle exchanges, increase funding for treatment, to stop raiding medical marijuana places, and maybe not arresting Chong so much. Kerlikowski used to run the 5-0 in Seattle and was famous/infamous for deciding that maybe he shouldn't waste his officers time fucking around with low level stoners. Though let's not get too enthralled with that possibility as President Obama's response to the whole marijuana debate was essentially "LOLSTONERS". But still, progress is progress, right? Things are looking up.

Just kidding, he's definitely going to be forced to resign and things will continue on as they were. No hope. No hope of any kind. He is unserious, he must be taught a lesson.

Pictures of the day

The Big Picture blog brings us scenes from Mexico's ongoing drug war with the cartels.

Broken News: Mexican drug cartels falling into trite Scarface stereotypes

JUAREZ—With the Mexican drug war entering yet another bloody month as the government and drug gangs fight over a multi-billion dollar illegal empire, there are increasingly signs of strife within the cartels. The impasses stem not from the escalating body counts, open war with the police and military, or the daily threat of impending death. Rather, sources say mid-level operatives are concerned that the extravagant lifestyle and machismo of the narcotics business has prompted cartel leaders to devolve into shopworn stereotypes of criminal culture.

“I’m walking around the pool of El Jefe’s mansion last month and you know what I see?” says a man identified only as Santino, a supplier for Baja’s El Guapo Sydicate. “A fucking Bengal tiger on a chain over by one of the palm trees. We’re out there trying to lay out distribution schedules and pickup dates and there’s a man eating animal on a flimsy looking chain in the corner. How can somebody concentrate with that 10 feet from you?"

He continued. "Jefe keeps getting up and giving these self-important speeches about money, power, and loyalty, strolling around in front of the tiger making these grandiose gestures. Finally his men bring out a guy they said betrayed the cartel and, after a long speech about betrayal, throws him to the tiger. Except the tiger isn't hungry and we waste the entire meeting trying to coax it into eating the guy. Finally Jefe just let us shoot the man. How can you run a business this way?”

Santino went on to provide detailed accounts, photographs, and expense reports of some of the more arcane expenditures. Included amongst the expenditures were the tiger, 1980’s style speed boats and Ferraris, gaudy faux-Italian marble statues, wide lapelled flowered shirts, and a multi-tiered plan to hunt and kill both Robert Loggia and F. Murray Abraham.

“The worst is the desk covered in blow,” said former gang member Savio Calderon, currently in prison. “It's gotta have a street value of at least $2 million to even look like a big pile and my boss had a fucking sand castle on his desk. He didn’t even do drugs, but he’s like ‘Savio, I’ve got an image to keep up here’ and going on and on about what people will think. I’m like ‘sell this and make some money.’ That is what we’re here to do, right?"

"The worst is when someone opens a door to come in, then the wind gusts and coke goes everywhere. You ever get cocaine in your eyes? It fucking stings.”

Others within the industry are quick to point out that the Scarface phase is preferable to the Godfather phase, where ultra-violent retribution and financial excess are replaced with Machiavellian scheming, backstabbing, infighting, Shakespearean drama, and interminable speeches about family.

“Ever have to sit through a 20 minute monologue on ‘way things used to be’ after a betrayal or murder over what amounts to pennies? It’s unbearable,” notes Carlos Vega, a member of the Cholo Bros. Cartel of Tijuana. “It really sucks all the fun out of being a drug dealing gangster.”

Most place the blame on the limited film libraries of the major cartel leaders as well as the lack of penetration of lesser known crime films into the Mexican pop culture consciousness. While films and TV shows like Traffic, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos haven’t made it across the border, the American rap industry, replete with its worship of Scarface and the Godfather, has been a mainstay for years.

“Here’s my brilliant idea,” Mr. Vega says. “How about the next time someone in this industry excitedly picks up a copy of Scarface, we slap it out of his hands? Maybe we start reading about building a high yield agri-business. How about we buy the Departed? That’s a good movie about gangsters, why don’t we watch that? If I have to hear one more ‘I’m the bad guy’ or ‘I’ll make ‘em an offer he can’t refuse’ speech I’m going back to contract killings for the CIA.”

Until that shift happens the drug war will rage on, enacting a horrible toll on the film tastes and originality of those who are swept up by it.

Prison reform

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia is introducing a bill into the Senate to create a bipartisan commission on prison reform that would conduct an 18 month review of the entire prison system. The bill has pretty broad support and should pass. Among the many reason Webb gives for the need of this commission are

*With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses 25% of the world's reported prisoners.
*Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980.
*Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.
*Approximately 1 million gang members reside in the U.S., many of them foreign-based; and Mexican cartels operate in 230+ communities across the country.
*Post-incarceration re-entry programs are haphazard and often nonexistent, undermining public safety and making it extremely difficult for ex-offenders to become full, contributing members of society.

These are all good reasons to reform prisons and all good reasons to move forward. But my question is this: don't we already know all of these problems exist? Don't we already know why they exist? Don't we all pretty much know what the solutions are? Isn't any 18 month review just pretty much going to restate these same problems we already know about? If so, then of what use is it? Why not act now on the problems we already know exist?

Because the senate is a stupid place. Even though everyone knows the problems that exist they need to have an official panel 'look into it' so they can come back with their observations of things we already know and everyone can act surprised and move to 'do something'. If we're just going to end up a year and a half from now with yet another official study to go with all the other official studies, while the fight gets boiled down to 'tough on crime' vs. 'soft on crime', then why don't we just start that fight up now? Is another comprehensive study really going to change the minds of people who want mandatory minimums and 8 years olds tried as adults so they can piece together an effective campaign ad?

If it does help then good, but I think we're going to have the same 'debate' on prisons we always have: somebody who knows something banging on a report and yelling "See!" for the umpteenth time versus a bunch of people snickering about 'liberal pussies' and how Jim Webb wants rapists out of prison quicker so they can ravage all of your grandmothers. Good luck anyway. Oh if you're not too busy, have them look at drug decriminalization and the drug war. It'll engender the same 'debate', but it's always nice to have yet another study showing our absolute failure to have a sensible drug policy.

Finally we're giving back to Mexico

U.S. Is Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels

The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.

When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.

Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.

Mexican authorities have long complained that American gun dealers are arming the cartels. This case is the most prominent prosecution of an American gun dealer since the United States promised Mexico two years ago it would clamp down on the smuggling of weapons across the border. It also offers a rare glimpse of how weapons delivered to American gun dealers are being moved into Mexico and wielded in horrific crimes.

Mexico: we don't want your damned people walking over here and doing our menial labor in the fields and restaurants of America.....but if you want sneak over here just for the purpose of buying guns from us and slaughtering each other and innocents in a fevered drug war? Be our guests, pesos spend as good as any currency. Cash overrides fear of Aztlan any day.

Unsurprisingly the cartels do this because not only are our gun laws waaaaay looser than Mexico's (thank you Chuck Heston) we also don't care if you're clearly not a citizen when you buy enough guns to arm a militia. We only care that you're not a citizen if you are trying to cook food, pick food, work construction, or clean someone's house. What will we do about it? Probably nothing, because then we'd be infringing on the 2nd Amendment, which in addition to covering terrorist suspects probably also covers Mexican drug cartels.

If you're interested in just what exactly our weapons are fueling this time, I urge you to click over to the LA Times series on Mexico's drug war, a near daily account of violent murders, shootouts, and street wars.

Phelps and Chong

Now that the economy is fixed and everything is OK, America can finally focus on what's important: photos of Michael Phelps smoking a bong. America, do we crucify him or do we put a crown of thorns on him, take his gold medals, and then crucify him? We trusted you Michael! This is almost enough for us as a people to take our focus off of trying to give Jessica Simpson an eating disorder. Thank God the law is getting serious about putting this criminal behind bars.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says he will charge Michael Phelps with a crime if he determines the Olympics hero smoked marijuana in Richland County...

...Possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail or a $570 fine, plus court costs.

But Lott seems to be the only person talking about making a case against Phelps. Both the USC and Columbia Police Departments said they would not pursue charges.

You will not be able to see Michael Phelps' eyes because of tea shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when he can't find a rape victim. Sadly though, this arrest will probably never happen seeing as of yet they have not invented the technology that can go into a photograph and scientifically prove what someone is smoking or snorting. Or if they have invented that technology it certainly hasn't gotten to South Carolina. But at least the SC sheriff gets to look like a big man for a few days and we get to shame a national hero for weed, instead of giving him an extra medal for destroying the swimming world while high.

This does however dash a dream of mine: seeing a police chase involving Phelps, where the cops are chasing him in cars and helicopters on seaside roads and he's furiously butterflying up the coast, pulling away from them.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.12

Tom Daschle To Also Oversee New White House Office Of Health Reform
All your healthcare jobs are belong to Tom Daschle. Apparently running the Department of Health and human Service isn't too labor intensive, because Tom also gets to run the newly invented White House Office of Health Reform. Try getting a job in this new economy, I'll bet you find Daschle swoops in and gets it before you do. This is yet another sign that not only does Obama want to get health care reformed, he's really focusing on the nuts and bolts of getting it passed. Using Tom Daschle either has you excited because he knows how the sausages are made and has remade himself into a health policy expert, or you hate it because he's an old time Washinton whore.

Gotcha!
If you want to be reminded about how almost the entirety of the War on Drugs is useless garbage and large scale fraud, go see the fruits of the labor of Barry Cooper and KopBusters and their trip to Odessa. Long story short they proved the cops were illegally using thermal imaging, making false reports and paying informants to lie. And all it took was Christmas trees under grow lamps and 24 hours. It also throws into question many of the drug convictions Odessa has, including one involving Yolanda Madden, who is in jail despite an informant stating under oath that he was payed by police to plant drugs on her.

In racially exclusive neighborhood, residents worried Bush will make it a 'target'
If I told you that Bush's new neighborhood had a neighborhood association covenant didn't allow black people to live there until 2000 (exceptions were made for servants) would you be surprised? In addition to the lack of blacks, he gets to chill with residents Ross Perot and Mark Cuban. The Cuban thing might be a little awkward, what with all those Bush appointees investigating him for insider trading.

Vitter leads Senate fight
Interesting that the Republicans decided to make David Vitter one of their TV spokesmen and pointmen on blocking the auto bailout. Remember him? He was named by two separate DC madam's as frequenting the services of prostitutes, often placing calls for hookers during House roll call votes. Most noted in that revelation was that he liked it when the hookers made him wear diapers. Now's he on TV everywhere making the case against the bailout and saying things like "ass-backward". That's how shallow the GOP bench is, known hooker paying diaper fetishists are the people you have to wheel out as spokesman.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 12.5

The recount is (almost) complete; Franken camp claims four-vote lead
As the Minnesota recount crawls mercifully to a close and primes for the circus sideshow that is the challenge process, Al Franken is claiming a 4 vote lead. No one else is though, soooo yeah. The key metric Franken is using is that he is counting all the challenged ballots by their ruling recounters made before the ballot was challenged and is assuming that those will be upheld by the canvassing board. Norm Coleman on the other hand, picked a random number out of a hat a claimed he lead by that number. Good news for Nate Silver, it doesn't look like Franken will win by 27 and I won't have to burn him as a witch. Matt Taibbi has a nice little article on the recount as well.

Analyst: Use Lasers on Pirates (and Everyone Else)
James Jay Carafano, PhD and homeland security analyst has a solution for the pirate problem: shoot the shit out of them with lasers. If shooting lasers at pirates (which was probably the childhood fantasy of 75% of boys) doesn't put the juice in your shorts he also wants to shoot lasers at Russia and Hezbollah. And sharks and bigfoots and sharkfoots. Shoot lasers at everything. Laser based defense. We need to listen to this man, we need to develop the necessary technology, and then we need to use it to shoot pirates.

Obama: "I Can't Grow Facial Hair"
Any hopes you had of P-E Obama growing some sort of Castro-esque beard, or perhaps going for a sartorial scholar look like Cornell West, or perhaps the hipster-indie follicles of Kyp Malone are going to see those hopes dashed on the rocks of despair. See, Obama says he can't grow a beard, not even a saucy mustache. Unless he changes this policy, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 will have been the last US President with a ballin' chin warmer. No bearded man has run since 1916, no mustacioed man since 1948.

Robbers in drag steal $100M in jewel heist
Four robbers, fully armed with weapons yet also disguised as women, jacked Harry Winston for €80 million (U.S. $101 million) in under 15 minutes. You had the fully automatic weapons and you still went with cross dressing for a 15 minute heist? Doesn't really sound like the cross dressing was too integral to the heist. There were no barons to be charmed, critical information need to be gleaned from a randy guard, and no sexytime shenanigans, it was a simple smash and grab. Someone just wanted to dress like a pretty lady.

Mexico Under Siege: The drug war at our doorstep.
Probably the biggest story you haven't heard about. If you want to read up on the massive Mexican drug war, the LA Times has a phenomenal series covering it. Essentially the President declared war on the cartels, the cartels declared war back, and it's like the heist scene from Heat 24/7. Bodies dumped at schools, gun battles, kidnapping, brutal killing and torture, gun fights in hospitals, pretty much open street warfare between rival gangs and battles with the cops and Feds. Nearly 7,000 drug-war related deaths since last year, and it's all taking place in Baja California and Chihuahua, sometimes spilling over the border. Both completely horrifying and worth your time.