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Unemployment is over 9 percent, independents are souring on the President, and the Presidency is looking like a failure. Welcome to 1982—except for one small thing: the current president and his party are supposed to care.
Archive for August, 2010
August 11th, 2010
Category: Drug Policy
Although I have made clear my opposition to Proposition 19, I find something admirable about a different ongoing effort to change marijuana law in California. California Senate Bill 1449, introduced by Senator Mark Leno, defines possession of an ounce or less of marijuana as an “infraction” warranting a fine of up to $100 and no [...]
August 10th, 2010
Category: Drug Policy
Eliminating state-level enforcement would swell the size of the illicit cannabis industry in California.
August 10th, 2010
If you believe than US foreign policy should serve moral and humanitarian goals, then Afghanistan might be the worst place to start.
August 10th, 2010
Category: Health Care
Scrolling through old posts to find candidates for recycling to The Atlantic, I ran across this one about why hospitals fail to screen trauma victims for alcohol abuse. It seems that laws in 38 state allow insurers to refuse coverage to patients under the influence. The resulting incentive structure leads to terrible health (and cost) [...]
August 10th, 2010
Category: Drug Policy, HIV/AIDS
CDC’s new reasonable syringe exchange guidelines are out. Good news. Public disinterest suggests heartening end to HIV culture wars–or disheartening boredom with a still-deadly epidemic.
August 10th, 2010
Category: Airline Industry and Travel
Particularly in a recession, many Americans in the service industry are going to sympathize with Steve Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who fled his airplane after being struck and treated like garbage by a passenger. My heart goes out to him, but my head says that no matter what punishment he receives or what help [...]
August 9th, 2010
Category: Watching Conservatives
Since monogamous heterosexual marriage is a deeply unnatural institution, representing an ideal that contemporary straight Americans can’t, or don’t want to, live up to, let’s keep making life hard for gays to reflect our regret about that fact.
August 9th, 2010
Jimmy Carter: the founder of Reaganism.
August 9th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized
I’ll be guest-posting for Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic this week (and you won’t – so there!), and for that slot I’ve decided to mostly recycle some of my greatest RBC hits. I’ve been going through the archives from 2002-2003, when it was just me and 1500 hits was a big day, and decided that [...]