Open Thread

I’m going to be on the road for the next week visiting family. My online access will be spotty, but I’ll be stopping in now and then adding some more posts when I can.
For those of you traveling – be safe. And I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas.
“bullet” Just a Girl in short shorts talking about whatever brings us a delightfully quirky and moving story: A Christmas Miracle in Colombia
“bullet” Via Blog Reload, revelations from Bill Conroy of Narco News that the mysterious downed cocaine plane in Mexico was part of a Department of Homeland Security Operation (not the downing, but the transporting) and that the Mexican government is keeping Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s (ICE) involvement quiet to avoid messing up the huge drug war funding bonus from the U.S. Oops.
“bullet” Nice letter from Howard Wooldridge in the Amarillo Globe-News
“bullet” We could save money by giving canine officers a quarter to flip, instead of a dog. Expert: Drug dogs wrong 48% of the time. You don’t have to feed a quarter or pick up after it.
“bullet” Something the kaptin’s been saying is coming… Alex at Drug Law Blog talks about Gov. Schwarzenegger proposal to release 20,000 low-risk prison inmates early because of budgetary problems.
“bullet” Apparently Drug WarRant is in the top 55 liberal bloggers/sites by traffic, according to this article. I’ll take the compliment with pleasure, even though Drug WarRant doesn’t specifically define itself as being either liberal or conservative. I’m also pretty sure that’s higher than my normal traffic numbers — probably hit me on a day I got a big boost from digg. But thanks, Kevin!
“bullet” This is from a while ago, and I can’t remember who pointed it out to me, but it’s sitting on my desktop, and it’s such classic reefer madness stuff… Did you know this? According to reporter James Schugel, “High-grade marijuana is four times more addictive than commercial grade.” Four times. Not three. Wow.
“bullet” Read this article about homicides in Allentown and see the strange disconnects… Intelligent people interviewed about drugs and gangs who understand the basic problems — that the drug war doesn’t work, that it’s about black market territories and profits, that arresting one dealer just means adding another one and increasing violence. They get it… but just can’t connect that last dot. …So they’re talking about re-instituting DARE.
“bullet” Drug Sense Weekly
“bullet” “drcnet”