Leon Wynter's commentary yesterday on All Things Considered was one of the most insightful takes I've yet heard on the Katrina disaster (and by disaster I mean the socio-economic-racial disaster, not just the physical one).

Two chilling posts on the federal gov't's war on doctors. One here, and the second here. More links thru the links.

Christopher Hitchens applies the first examples I've seen of reasoned response and critical thought to the Cindy Sheehan "situation" - first here, then here.

"Government spending under the GOP's reign has soared to historic highs, any way you want to measure it. And in stark contrast to President Reagan — or even the president's own father—President Bush refuses to rein in spending. He hasn’t used his veto a single time since taking office — the longest such streak in U.S. history."
A tough attack on the Republicans from... foxnews.com - find good critiques where you can.

Radley Balko shares some well reasoned thoughts - and a good link inside to more research - on the anti-obesity lunacy, and why we DON'T need a war on obesity.
The simplest argument against a government war on obesity? The results of the war on drugs and the war on poverty, to name the two biggest "war on ... " failures I can think of.

If the cops mistakenly destroy your property because they thought it was drugs, well, you lose your property.

The name alone would make it worthy of note, but the content is simply mouth-watering: iheartbacon.com.

"One of the defects of democracy is that we usually have quite ordinary persons as our leaders. Sometimes this doesn't matter; their particular defects don't bear upon public affairs, or the times are sufficiently placid that it just doesn't matter that they drink, or play too much poker, or cultivate friends of doubtful character, or whatever.

These are not such times. The President's ignorance of science might have remained a private matter, but he chose to speak on the subject of evolution and "intelligent design." This is a great pity.

Science -- from the loftiest of theorizing (like that of Einstein or, oh, Darwin) through the conducting of painstakingly difficult experiments to the application of new knowledge to the improvement of human life -- science, I say, is the chief engine of our society."

Via The Agitator...
The ACLU sues over a law on alcohol tests of pedestrians. The law says breathalyzers can be required from minors without a warrant - refusal means $100 fine.
Pedestrians. No vehichle, no danger to nobody. Yep. America.

Newsweek (like most news sources) likes the hype rather than the meat of a story, so it goes with their new cover story on methamphetamine. Meanwhile, Slate has some straight dope about the meth "epidemic."
More on why the hype is bad - undercover cops bust immigrant clerks who don't understand that the cops are pretending to be meth makers. Law enforcement going the extra mile to bust the innocent.... (nytimes login: opensewer, password:iswatching)

Wanna help a poor worker in a developing country? Buy some sweatshop-made goods! It's better for them! An excerpt:
The apparel industry, which is often accused of unsafe working conditions and poor wages, actually pays its foreign workers well enough for them to rise above the poverty in their countries. While more than half of the population in most of the countries we studied lived on less than $2 per day, in 90 percent of the countries, working a 10-hour day in the apparel industry would lift a worker above - often far above - that standard. For example, in Honduras, the site of the infamous Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal, the average apparel worker earns $13.10 per day, yet 44 percent of the country's population lives on less than $2 per day.
Shocking, no? Read more here.

In the interest of squashing any wild rumors and urban legends before they grow immortal, an open letter from drug treatment doctors and specialists disspelling some of the myths about meth.

Who is this guy on all those kids' t-shirts and those Rage Against the Machine posters, anyway? Go to his store to find out! It's Che-Mart!

Across the pond, "One in four Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists." From a British poll of Muslims in the UK.
More here.
Makes me wonder a bit... makes me wonder what the percentages of sympathetic Muslims might be here in the U.S.... makes me wonder how many non-Muslims might also sympathize, which we don't get numbers for.
Thanks to aldaily.com

John Tierney in the Ny Times (login:opensewer; password:iswatching) on the persecution and prosecution of doctors and patients dealing with the challenges of chronic pain.

Still yet more on obesity... Radley Balko talking a little about the definitions of obesity and the flawed studies about weight and health.
Check your own BMI (body mass index) here, and be sure to remember that the BMI does NOT distinguish weight of fat from weight of muscle.

For the next time you want to read an article at a registration required site but don't have and don't want to register: BugMeNot!

Following up on my post from 7/8: Jacob Sullum has a short piece on obesity, Krugman, and the Fat Polic/Nanny State.
Here is Sullum's earlier piece on the Center for Science in the Public Interest, scaremongers of the obesity plague.

Julian Sanchez on Parentalism - the urge to regulate ourselves, that urge to be free from the responsibility of our own choices.

"If we believe we have a right to a free press, we do not seek a rational book policy or reading policy; on the contrary, we would call such a policy "censorship" and a denial of our First Amendment rights.
If we believe we have a right to freedom of religion, we do not seek a rational belief policy or religion policy; on the contrary, we would call such a policy "religious persecution" and a denial of the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.
So long as we do not believe in freedom of, and responsibility for, drug use, we cannot mount an effective opposition against medical-statist drug controls. In a free society, the duty of the government is to protect individuals from others who might harm them; it is not the government's business to protect individuals from harming themselves. " - Thomaz Szasz.
I've seen the name Thomas Szasz show up here and there before, but this time I will thank Tom Cruise (yep!) for his recent tirade against the psychiatry industry, which brough Szasz's name back to my attention. You can find a lot about Szasz here. I am finding it a decent collection of his thoughts and writings, which I am currently enjoying. (Link to the article from which the quote was taken is here.)

David Stove once observed, “As an item on the intellectual agenda, Marxism is scarcely even a joke… . Marxism is a fearful social—and police—problem, but so is the drug trade. It is a fearsome political problem, but so is Islamic fundamentalism. But an intellectual problem Marxism is not, any more than the drug trade or Islamic fundamentalism.”
Tell that to the UK folks voting in the online poll of world's greatest philosopher . Here's a quote from the leader in the poll at publish date:
It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way. —Marx to Engels, 1857 That quote from this article on Leszek Kolakowski.

Uh-oh. Normally sober-minded economist and NYTimes (login:opensewer; password:iswatching) columnist Paul Krugman is getting on the obesity / "let's regulate eating and food" bandwagon. Specifically, he is making the case that your own diet and your "bad" eating habbits are the government's problems. It's a weak argument he's presenting, but it's an argument for "doing something," which usually gets politicians and activists excited. The problem is, what can we do? Increase health education? OK. But will that be considered enough? I doubt it will be for the activists, and the politicians the activists will pressure. Any taxes on food itself will fail to distinguish between those who eat "bad" food in healthy moderation from those who become obese from simply eating too much food (which may have been healthy in smaller amounts).
The strongest argument in favor of government intervention I have heard is that the rising costs of obesity create costs that our entire nation has to deal with through the health care system. However, the idea that this systemic connection might be re-evaluated is usually not considered; what is considered more readily is intervention and control over the production and eating liberties we enjoy currently.
Krugman also references and advances an argument that "at least some food consumption is almost certainly not rational." So what, Paul? The same might be said of drinking whiskey, sports, social pursuits, and even religion. Don't we reserve to adults the right to make choices that appear irrational to others?

We've posted here about America and the bad habits of Americans before. Morgan Spurlock made a movie and some considerable money and fame from the subject with Supersize Me, the McDonald's diet in its worst possible form. Now he has a new book out: Don't Eat This Book, but maybe it should be called don't buy this crap.

It appears Spurlock doesn't let facts get in the way of his demonizing mission. Aren't attention to detail and reliance on factual evidence the cornerstones of investigative journalism? Sadly, not in this case. In fact, his book is so loose with facts that writer Radley Balko has decided to dedicate a blog just to exposing his errors. Ugh.

This is a fine example of lazy, deceptive journalism that will receive a lot of press and likely become popular. Such work defrauds the public and does not contribute to public debate.

First Raich, then Kelo. Two major Supreme Court decisions in a row in which I side with Justice Thomas, not something I'd expected. I mean, how many med-marijuana supporters would have expected to be siding with Thomas back when his name was always attached to Anita Hill's?
Props to Thomas and the other dissenters in Kelo who respect your right to own your own home without it being under constant threat of being taken by the state so someone can put their private business there.
You want links? Too bad. Blogger's control board doesn't come up on Mac's Safari browser, and my art school is a Mac place. And I ain't getting paid to write html. Try Slate.com or Reason for some court case analysis.

If you haven't yet seen Guruphiliac, you really need to take a peek.

The other week I was nearly lucky enough to meet the highly talented French author Michel Houellebecq at the event mentioned in this article. He was promoting the new translation of his older work: H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (published by Believer Books). His novels include Whatever, The Elementary Particles, and Platform (English titles).

Keith Thompson is Leaving the left because he can "no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity."
Here's a part from his piece that explains why I have similar sympathies: "A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites. "

Oh, this is insane here, we are talking madatory snitching now... I can't believe it would pass the Supreme Court, but here's the word (long excerpt from alternet.org but there are other places to read about this):
Sensenbrenner, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has introduced legislation that would essentially draft every American into the war on drugs. H.R. 1528, cynically named "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act," would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. If a person resisted, he or she would face mandatory incarceration.

Here's how the "spy" section of the legislation works:
If you "witness" certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" about them, you must report the offenses to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory minimum two-year prison sentence, and a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Here are some examples of offenses you would have to report to police within 24 hours:
You find out that your brother, who has children, recently bought a small amount of marijuana to share with his wife;
You discover that your son gave his college roommate a marijuana joint;
You learn that your daughter asked her boyfriend to find her some drugs, even though they're both in treatment.

In each of these cases you would have to report the relative to the police within 24 hours. Taking time to talk to your relative about treatment instead of calling the police immediately could land you in jail.

End excerpt. Yes, it's true. Don't like it? Wanna fight it? Fight here (just one place)!

The Tour de Sol is a Monte Carlo-style road rally where participants must achieve over 100 miles per gallon in their vehicles to have a chance at winning. The rally is surrounded by a number of other events promoting smart transportation energy use.

"Without realizing it, liberals and conservatives are working from opposite ends of the political spectrum, under opposing rationales, to reach the same end: expanded government power." William H. Mellor wites in The American Lawyer.