I don't have a job anymore! Nor do I have LSATs! That makes me somewhat able to post on the blog again, even if only to do a link round-up.
1. This is a great article on the process of acquiring medical marijuana in America's most competent state. Basically, it's easier to find a fake doctor to prescribe weed to you for your fake problems than it is to get a real doctor to agree to do the same for real problems.
2. NYT Review of Books on the drug war in Mexico. I don't have a lot of "value-added" commentary here, other than to say that this only reinforces the argument I am constantly making about the moral costs of cocaine use by Americans, Canadians, and Europeans. Also, while this is an incredibly dark and disturbing article, there are repeated references to a criminal death cult, which means that Cobra was a much more prescient movie than I am willing to admit.
3. A new language! Well, not new, but not known academically. It's also interesting because linguists aren't really sure how Koro has survived so long, considering there is no place where it is the dominant language.
4. An interview with Steve Rattner, the dude Obama czar-ified to help work out the auto industry bailouts. I confess I didn't really understand this portion of TARP, nor did I pay a lot of attention to it, but, as with the rest of the bailouts, it seems to have gone smoothly. What is most interesting about the interview, though, is the volume of spleen-venting Rattner does over Congress. He even makes two criticisms which have been around in the liberal blogosphere at least as long as Obama's been in the White House (and with which I happen to agree): one, that the presidency is weaker than the media perceives or portrays it to be (at least in domestic affairs), and that as a result negative attention that should rightly be cast towards congress is cast towards Obama, and two, that the congressional appointment system is totally screwed, to the point where even a Nobel Prize-winning economist can be kept out of the Fed.
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The first article reminded me a bit of the Florida/Oxycotin documentary you posted on the blog maybe a little under a year ago. Though more by the prescription peddling single-function doctors office part and less by of the whole scary dangerous drug part. Either way, hopefully this will all be irrelevant next month.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree with Rattner's criticisms of the Obama criticizers up to a point. Certainly the lion's-share of inaction and incompetence can be attributed to Congress. But the whole "what was he supposed to do? NOT appointed Larry Summers?!" argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.