Back in October, I posted on a little problem appearing in Venezuela. The government’s spending requires very high oil prices to keep the books balanced, and $40 oil is not exactly close to that target. So what does Venezuela need? Quick money: President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his [...]

More than a year ago, I wrote about an Arizona middle school student who was strip searched by school officials after being caught with Advil, a legal non-prescription, over-the-counter pain reliever, in her possession. Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and determine whether her parents can pursue a claim against the school [...]

Good Magazine’s “Jailbirds” The Marijuana Policy Project’s “The War on Drugs in 100 Seconds” Hat Tip: Matt Kelly @ change.org “Criminal Justice”

“As I’ve said before, the United States does not torture,” said President Bush in 2006.  “It’s against our laws and it’s against our values.” The AP brings us the latest episode of the other half of the story: “We tortured Qahtani,” Crawford said, making her the first senior Bush administration official to say that aggressive [...]

It’s very simple, and it’s something that, in many forms, I’ve discussed on many levels. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone lay it out quite as clearly and succinctly as here at Coyote Blog. I’m not going to excerpt it, because you simply need to click over and read the whole thing.

…is brought to you by the letter “E” “E” for education, that is.  While education isn’t one of my hot-topic items, two interesting articles arrived in my inbox around the same time this morning.  First of all, Garry Reed identifies a key problem: Last September the state of Maine gave their kiddos a lasting lesson. [...]

Thanks to Brad and the rest of the folks here for affording me the honor of writing at a website which I’ve read nearly daily for years. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make some contributions to what I consider a really good blog. As I am frequently involved in a wide range of political activities, [...]

San Francisco Chronicle: Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer arrested on suspicion of murdering an unarmed passenger on an Oakland train platform early New Year’s Day, waived extradition at a Nevada hearing and will be returned to Alameda County sometime today… […] The ex-officer is being held in connection with the shooting of Oscar [...]

Apparently, in the State of New Jersey the answer is yes: Authorities in New Jersey removed 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell and his two young siblings from the care of their parents, according to a published report Tuesday. The state’s Division of Youth and Family Services took the boy, as well as his sisters — JoyceLynn [...]

On June 23, minor-league baseball’s Brooklyn Cyclones will become the Baracklyn Cyclones. Now, discounting my internal BS meter that suggests that this could be a slight hoax (albeit not one that I care to spend much time fact-checking), I see that they’re apparently minor-league when it applies to semantics as well. One of the festivities: [...]

Two main things: 1. I’ve changed the “Contributors” blogroll to make a distinction between currently active contributors, and those who (for whatever reason) no longer have the time or inclination to post on a regular basis. This is part of a wider effort, to become a little bit more consistent in our output… Which brings [...]

Maybe, just maybe, lawmakers around the country, including here in Georgia, have overreacted with regards to internet predators: The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all. A high-profile task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that [...]

So, reading an article about weak earnings and Wall Street’s concern over what January will bring, do you get the sense that this was thrown in there without thought? There was some upbeat news. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the trade deficit fell to its lowest level in five years. The deficit narrowed 28.7 [...]

Over at Reason: Hit & Run, Nick Gillespie on the regulation of the internet: One trend that’s making a comeback with the Obama ascendancy is the need for smart folks not to regulate the Net per se, but to, you know, come up with better rules that will help make sure that everything that’s so [...]

Down in Venezuela, the low oil prices have been particularly punishing to Hugo Chavez. Faced with a crisis where his government programs are far more expensive than his revenues, he’s taken the path expected of any tin-pot dictator or Federal Reserve Chairman — he’s going to devalue the currency (though taking pains to hide it): [...]

It’s no secret that dead-tree journalism has been on a significant slide lately. The product is faced with a dynamic new entrant to the market (the Internet), and it seems as if the “new media” is making the old obsolete. In many industries, this would be a signal that it’s time to start finding newer [...]

Kevin Drum is looking at the benefits of massive fiscal stimulus as well as tax cuts… And he wonders why we don’t do both? Stimulus spending can (we hope) help keep the economy afloat over the next couple of years, but then what? When the economy starts to recover, it will certainly be helped along [...]

From Ronald Bailey at Reason – Hit & Run: “Intelligent design is to evolutionary biology what socialism is to free-market economics.” Saying something like that is a good way to piss off your average left- or right-winger. Heck, it’s a good way to make the average human’s head explode, because the idea of interconnected complex [...]

Many people have expressed a hope that Barack Obama will be an improvement over George Bush and that he will roll back some of George Bush’s excesses.  They see in Obama a man who understands nuanced argument, who at least acknowledges that those who oppose his policies can have good reasons and arguments for doing [...]

Are you kidding me? General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said he is looking forward to having a “car czar” in place so U.S. automakers have someone sympathetic to its needs in Washington. “We will have someone to talk to about the pain being inflicted on use [sic] for no unearthly [sic] reason,” Lutz [...]