The R.O.X.A.N.N.E. The whole Roxanne’s Revenge story? Rap teen took advantage of a minor clause in her contract to have the evil record company pay for all her education up to an including her Ivy-League PhD? Reported in Blender and more recently the Daily News? The feel good story of 2008 for the old-school hip…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates has an interesting post about the death penalty and “innocent” people on death row. I assume it’s inspired by this storyin the New Yorker. I feel the need to highlight the case of Roger Keith Coleman, a man claimed innocence to the end, and whose case was murky enough that it garnered this…
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This isn’t new. But it happened in the Eastern and only know did I discover (thanks to a colleague of mine) the Timearticle.
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” — Betrand Russell
I’ve always wondered and never been able to figure out exactly how much police cars cost to operate. Somebody in motor-pool must know, but nobody has told me. Here’s an article in the New York Times about a fleet for OTB. No doubt cheaper than cop cars. The vehicles cost an average of $6,700 each…
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Esquire.com just published a nice piece by John Richardson about my op-ed co-author, Neill Franklin, on violence in the drug war. We’ve heard a lot about the terrible death toll Mexico has suffered during the drug war — over 11,000 souls so far. This helps to account for the startling lack of controversy that greeted…
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Somebody tried to do to me what I tried to do to the Heritage Foundation. I was accused of playing fast and loose the numbers in my Washington Post op-ed. In the old days I could have just challenged him to a duel. I’d feel pretty confident going into that battle! Instead I have to…
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OK. I’ll be honest. I had never heard of the guy either. But it turns out he might be responsible for America’s great crime drop (not that he ever claimed such a feat). But he did hire Bill Bratton to run the New York Transit Police, and that was perhaps the start of it all.…
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A nice articlein Reason by Radley Balko. This one on police TV shows and use of force. Of course, there isn’t “always a good time to use a Taser,” as the multitude of viral web videos depicting taserings of grandmothers, pregnant women, and children will attest. TLC’s ad campaign is offensive, though merely the latest…
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The generally conservative and pro-legalization Economist reports: The evidence from Portugal since 2001 is that decriminalisation of drug use and possession has benefits and no harmful side-effects. … IN 2001 newspapers around the world carried graphic reports of addicts injecting heroin in the grimy streets of a Lisbon slum. The place was dubbed Europe’s “most…
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