Any good magician, pickpocket, or detective story writer knows the benefit of misdirection.  Make sure everyone is watching one hand, and then do your mischief with the other.

And Republicans have been very good at the same technique as well.  Usually defensively -- shout your homophobia to the world so that no one will notice those white stains on your cheek, shirt, or jeans when you leave the men's room.  (As someone who has had many similar white stains, I am not criticizing  Republican gayness but their hypocrisy.) 

But some have started using it as a technique on offense as well.  Ann Coulter is particularly good at making outrageous, easily refutable statements that get her headlines, get people curious if 'she really said that' and buying her book.  And the people who do find her usual piles of equine excrement -- but ones that have gone unexamined by the media and bloggers as they attack her where she has chosen the battle.  (GODLESS was a prime example, as we all remember the battles it caused over some of her statements about liberals -- but no one attacked the -- equally absurd -- case she made in favor of creationism.and I'm sure a lot of her readers -- even those who read her as a 'freak show' -- had never studied the question and found her arguments on the topic plausible.)

But I don't recall offhand any previous example of the tactic being used on legislation before.  So Jeff Sessions, you've earned your membership in the Magic Circle, the Thieves' Guild, or the MWA.  And, sadly, your 'stooge from the audience' that fell for your sleight-of-hand was someone who's usually one of the more intelligent Senators, Pat Leahy.

You knew that everybody would catch the 'death penalty' Amendment and scream about this -- and rightly so.  I'm sure you realized that it would cause enough comment that it would be stricken in conference, and everyone would be complimenting the conferees at 'ducking a bullet.'  Meanwhile you slipped your -- I assume -- real 'poison pill' into the legislation and even got Sen. Leahy to agree to it.

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I'm late on this - I should have known and posted about this before April 17^th.  (It is only slight consolation that most of my fellow bloggers missed it entirely.  Stories do get lost in the chaos, and sometimes the only way to keep on top of what is happening is to link to other bloggers, so if nobody catches it the first time around, it can 'fall through the cracks.')

But April 17^th was when this should have been all over the blogosphere.  Two reasons: April 17^th is the Annual Day of Silence held by the students of many schools in support of gay students and gay rights in general.  And April 17^th would have been the birthday of Carl Walker-Hoover.  Only he didn't see his birthday.  He had been mercilessly taunted by his fellow students for being gay, and, eleven days before his birthday, he hung himself.

There are two other facts that make the story more poignant.  One is the fact that there is no evidence that he thought of himself as gay or was gay - which really doesn't matter but which might open the hearts of some homophobes.

The other is the fact that, on April 17^th, 2009, Carl Walker-Hoover would have turned twelve years old.

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The "Tea Parties" were nationally promoted events, with Fox practically being a sponsor, with both magazines and bloggers hyping them.  They were the first chance for anti-Obama people to come together and shout their protests to the whole world.  They attracted all types of the non-religious conservatives, from Norquist to Paulistas as well as the mainstream.

Their supporters had been pushing them for months, and liberal blogs and commentators, puzzled by what these people were trying to say, helped get the word out.  This would really matter!

Estimates of attendance across the country has ranged from 25000 to 100000.

Class A Minor League baseball is the lowest level of professional baseball.  The players are young, usually unknown to fans who don't assiduously follow the game, or readers of local newspapers.  The games are played in small cities and usually don't get much publicity out of the area -- and none nationally.  A team located near a major league city gets it's games barely mentioned in two inch stories.  Wednesday was an average day, most of the 'home openers' were completed, schools are not yet out in the areas.

There were 36 games played in 29 parks on Wednesday -- one game was rained out, there were seven doubleheaders.  Total Attendance?

Totalling the figures given in the box scores:  58,722.

Comment by me is unneccesary.

This time it's Jacksonville, Florida.

Glass half empty -- another example of authorities used by an influential local to prosecute a  local blogger critical of him.

Glass half full -- we're approaching the liklihood of a Peter Zenger case for bloggers. 

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We're used to the story by now.  Every so often we see the same type of story.  Blogger posts against local government or Police corruption.  The next we here of him the police have moved in, seized his computer, including private business records, and arrested the blogger on trumped up charges.  And we get rightfully indignant -- as we should -- and join a world-wide campaugn to protect those bloggers and protest the actions of the police department and corrupt government.

We are used to seeing the story from Egypt, from Iraq, from China or Zimbabwe.

But Phoenix?  Phoenix, Arizona?

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[Please read this together with the previous post.]

(In the previous post I discussed specific statements of Mark Kleiman's.  In this one I want to try and deal with the expressed fears behind Mark's refusal to back legalization.)

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I knew when I started arguing for marijuana legalization that I would have to argue publicly with Mark Kleiman, who is easily the sanest critic of legalization.  This isn't easy for me.  I have corresponded with Mark over a couple of years, like what I know of the man, and he's even given me a forum to guest-post a couple of articles on other topics.  I like him personally from the contact we've had - and if he occasionally considers my long-windedness tiresome, so has almost anyone who has known me and been a friend.  (Hell, even I can consider my long-windedness tiresome - one reason I tend to take breaks from blogging and abandoned my previous blog.)

          And on most things political I am reasonably close to Mark.  We may disagree on minor matters but - to disappear into fantasy - were we to be Senators, Mark from CA and me from NY, our voting records would probably wind up being pretty close to identical.  Even on drugs other than cannabis we probably are close.  Mark is hardly a 'drug warrior' and has as much contempt for the breed as I do.  I too do not favor legalization of other drugs but prefer, in most cases 'steps short of legalization.'  (In fact, while I don't recall Mark speaking of these in particular, I may be to the right of him on some drugs.  I don't see any way of dealing with methamphetamine or 'date-rape' drugs except the 'drug warrior' position - one reason why I tend to criticize the 'what right has the government to tell us what we can do with our bodies' argument.)

          But, on cannabis, Mark is, simply, wrong.  His overall position, his 'legalization without commercialization' is not a bad policy, but it is impractical and unnecessary, mostly because Mark's basic fears - which seem to come from a mistaken belief that a business model that works well for cocaine is transferrable to the marijuana business - are 'chimeras.' 

I had started a long post in reply to one of Mark's a couple of weeks ago, but medical problems and domestic necessities kept me from finishing it.  I will probably cannibalize some parts of this if Mark is willing to turn this into a dialogue.  (Btw, for those who are curious, my medical problems are mostly orthopedic, a torn rotator cuff, a misplaced disc, arthritis in my ankles and a problem with the hinge of a knee.  None seem to be the result of my marijuana smoking, unless you blame it for making me work harder and longer than I might otherwise do and thus having worn out various parts.)

          However, yesterday Mark <a href="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/drug_policy_/2009/03/cannabis_legalization_as_economic_stimulus_a_pipe_dream.php> posted </a> an article on 'legalization as an economic stimulus,' calling it a pipe dream and treating it as almost beneath contempt.  Since this is my own favored argument I feel almost required to respond.  (Afaik, I was the first person to use it -- as contrasted to the 'tax it for revenue' argument.  I did a cursory google search and didn't find an earlier cite If someone used it earlier, I would appreciate seeing knowing of it.  I'm very curious to find out if anyone used similar reasoning.)

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The party was in trouble.  They couldn't understand it.  Hadn't they, in their beginnings, held the country together and unified it?  Wasn't their first President destined to go down in history as one of the greatest in American history?  How soon the voters forget.

They'd elected the President four years earlier, a member of a prominent American political family that included two Presidents, a Vice-President - who later went on to be President - members of Congress, Cabinet Members, and holders of other official positions. 

But he'd been a disaster.  He'd been rightfully attacked for trying to subvert fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Constitution, he'd been criticized for his absurd over-inflation of the ceremonial aspects of the Presidency.  And his party had bled votes profusely in the cities because of their anti-immigrant stand and for its support of policies aimed at benefitting the rich.

      The mid-term elections had showed the country turning to the Democrats, and now one of them was President, and he'd brought with him a large majority in Congress.  He'd won, despite the Party's attacks on his 'attachment to America,' his religious beliefs, his patriotism.  He'd even been known to hang around with people who'd been revolutionaries in the near past.

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It sounds like such a perfect compromise, an almost Clintonian exercise in 'triangulation.'  One side wants marijuana legalized, the other side wants it still criminalized.  So you 'split the difference' and set up a system where small amounts won't send you to jail, but will cost a small fine - thus pleasing those whose 'real' argument is "I want to smoke it without being hassled" - but which will still permit heavy jail terms for 'possession with intent to sell' or 'growing more than you can reasonably use' or 'importing the stuff.'  This keeps the 'stop the Devil Weed' crowd happy, since those evil dealers can still be sent to jail.

            And, as with DADT, 'Civil Unions, yes; gay marriage, no' and 'workfare' - the problems of which are now becoming apparent - 'decriminalization' is a supposedly 'pragmatic solution' that sounds reasonable, but becomes, in practice, a disaster, failing to accomplish even part of what it was supposed to, bringing not praise but justified criticism from both sides, and proving to be far too easily open to abuse.  (There are many reasons why these have proven to be failures, but surely the most obvious is that the 'compromise' accepts, silently, the Conservative position.   More on that later.)

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[This was originally a comment at POLITICAL ANIMAL on Steve's coverage of Gov. Jindal refusing Federal assistance for extending unemployment benefits.  I hope it will become one of a series.]

FABLES FOR THE REPUBLICAN MIND:#1 (of a series)

(Court case)
"Now, Officer Jindal, you don't deny that when the decedent's car finally overbalanced and slid down the side of the ravine, considerable damage occurred to the houses below?"

<i>"No, Sir, that's undeniable.  Even my relatives had some windows broken in the resulting dirt slide.  And yes, many houses were ruined by it.  But I still do not understand why I am being sued for the damage.  I didn't drive the car there, or attempt to turn around in such a dangerous place.  It's the defendant's family that should be being sued.  Instead, Your Honor has allowed this suit to go forward, and even allowed them to sue me for 'wrongful death.' I don't understand how..."</i>

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I don't usually pat attention to the Summer Olympics at all.  Baseball is on, and I always have a ton of discs in the queue to catch up with, shows I've recorded.  The Olympics are like the Final Four to me -- mostly a guarantee that one network, at least is not adding more shows to the backlog..

But is there anyone out there with the slightest enjoyment of sports who wasn't dragged into last summer's games by the incredible performance of Michael Phelps?  I can't even swim, and I could appreciate his incredibly mastery of the water.  (And while I usually dislike the chauvinism that makes the anthem played for the winners more important than the performances that won the awards, I'll admit that knowing Phelps was an American did add an extra bit of joy to watching him smash records.)

And football is enjoyable -- once the World Series is over -- but I usually get so determined to avoid the two weeks of hype before the Super Bowl that sometimes I forget to switch my attention back on for the game itself -- even when one of my teams is playing.  (I like Pittsburgh teams -- don't ask me why since I've never lived or had the slightest desire to visit there.)

But this year's Super Bowl was super, a great, exciting game.  And Santonio Holmes' wonderful catch won his team the game and himself the MVP Award.

I could enjoy both performances, and did, before I knew Phelps and Holmes shared something with me -- a liking for marijuana.

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Perhaps I should not begin my first post here by 'shamelessly blogwhoring' but I just wrote over 2500 words on this topic, with twice as much again in the comments section, so I am going to summarize my argument briefly -- well, for me it's brief, but those who know me know that is an elastic word for me -- and then recommend the original post for more details.

Advocates for legalization -- which range from HIGH TIMES to Milton Friedman -- frequently point to the tax revenues legal marijuana might generate, to the better utilization of police and judicial time, to the savings on incarceration -- even to the reduction in plea bargaining and early release that the unclogging of court calendars and prison systems would bruing about.  All of these are perfectly valid arguments.  (I would argue the civil libertarian arguments, that people should have a right to consume a mostly harmless substance, especially when such more harmful substances as tobacco and alcohol are legal, while valid, are more likely to 'convince those who don't need convincing.')

But, afaik, no one has noticed the economic stimulus effect that legalization would produce, and it is major -- my calculations give a stimulus effect of $2 billion dollars -- a month.

The argument isn't a difficult one.

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