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After reading my post on 24/7 Sobriety, the criminologist David Kennedy was kind enough to send me a copy of Deterrence and Crime Prevention. His book is a tour de force not just for its intellectual value, but for its wisdom about why people do the things they do (cops and robbers both). One of [...]
Archive for September, 2010
September 19th, 2010
Category: Crime Control, Defense and national security
The WaPo has a chilling story from Afghanistan about a platoon that decided to engage in a little bit of recreational murder and trophy-hunting.
September 19th, 2010
Category: Britain, Drug Policy
I get more than the usual narcissistic pleasure an award brings from this considerable honor bestowed by BMA. It took almost five years for our team of 12 researchers from 7 countries to write Drug Policy and the Public Good. The process was stimulating but also, frankly, arduous. In many areas, drug policy research doesn’t [...]
September 19th, 2010
Category: Health and Medicine, Science and its methods
Why is it ethical to give the half the people in a trial what you know to be an ineffective treatment for a fatal disease?
September 18th, 2010
Jon Stewart’s 10/30 “Rally to Restore Sanity” has turned him into something he despises: a mainstream media creator of false equivalences. American politics hasn’t gone crazy: the Republican Party has.
September 18th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized
Conflict is unavoidable regarding emerging prenatal technologies. Fortunately, people on each side can press their case while recognizing the seriousness, legitimate concerns, and common humanity of their counterparts on the other side. Readers commenting on Amy Julia Becker’s recent New York Times essay show how this is done.
September 18th, 2010
Category: Religion and Politics
If God doesn’t exist, please explain to me how it happened that the Christian Right candidate for the Senate in Delaware was caught on video talking about how she had “dabbled in witchcraft.”
September 18th, 2010
Prof. Henderson’s judgment continues to fail him, and he apparently went up against Brad Delong, something the really smart and really wise and really well-informed do with great caution. Who was it that rush in where angels fear to tread, again? Remember the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail? Brad attached a rocket engine [...]