wow

dundas peak

Martin Daly - Risk-taking, Inequality, and Homicide

A recent public lecture by my supervisor. 45 minute video.

confusion

Why would someone think it's wise to embrace the defining tactics of a political movement that has been stomped, repudiated and crushed?

Uh, because they're part of that movement and continue to believe in it, and because it hasn't actually been crushed, just rebranded?

expectations

Criminalizing cancer and AIDS patients for using a substance that is (a) prescribed by their doctors and (b) legal under the laws of their state has always been abominable. The Obama administration deserves major credit not only for ceasing this practice, but for memorializing it formally in writing.

- Glenn Greenwald

What other abominable things does BO deserve credit for not doing?

please consider sending Arthur Silber some money. he's a brilliant writer living in desperate poverty and illness. every little bit helps.

i might have commented on the BO peace prize or columbus day, but i was visiting friends in wisconsin. cheese and beer, etc.

responsibly avoiding responsibility

Nina Alexander, the prosecutor who went after a grandmother who bought more cold medicine for her 3 grandchildren than the law allows one person to buy within a week, says basically: "I am incapable of distinguishing law from morality, and thus am absolved of any responsibility for anything I do that follows the letter of the law. I am a robot, programmed by the state. You wouldn't get mad at a robot, would you!?"

My favorite part was her demented nanny-state logic whereby a law that results in chaining, caging, and fining the poor old lady trying to care for her sick grandkids must be "a good law because it has had the desired effect, i.e. a reduction in meth manufacturing and meth use." By Nina's logic, a law that says anyone suspected of using meth must immediately be shot would be a good law.

As always, the lesson is that the state poses more danger to you than it prevents. A secondary lesson is that law is a religion, and a particularly pathetic one.