randomWalks

Mom?

It is recognized widely that it fails to achieve its stated end and the failed methods are then pursued more vigorously while effective ways to reach the stated goal are rejected. It is therefore natural to conclude that the drug war, cast in the harshly punitive form implemented since 1980, is achieving its goals, not failing.

What are these goals? A plausible answer is implicit in a comment by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the few senators to pay close attention to social statistics. By adopting these measures, he observed, "we are choosing to have an intense crime problem concentrated among minorities." Criminologist Michael Tonry concludes that "the war's planners knew exactly what they were doing." What they were doing is, first, getting rid of the "superfluous population," the "disposable people" ("desechables"), as they are called in Colombia, where they are eliminated by "social cleansing"; and second, frightening everyone else, not an unimportant task in a period when a domestic form of "structural adjustment" is being imposed, with significant costs for the majority of the population."

The National Justice Commission repeatedly points out that crime in the United States, while sort of high, is not off the spectrum for industrialized societies. On the other hand, fear of crime is far beyond other societies, and mostly stimulated by various propaganda. The Drug War is an effort to stimulate fear of dangerous people from who we have to protect ourselves. It is also, a direct form of control of what are called "dangerous classes," those superfluous people who don't really have a function contributing to profit-making and wealth. They have to be somehow taken care of.

The Pixelpalooza icons are up for judging at the Iconfactory, and there are some unbelievable entries. Do your Mac a favor and download some today!

Sometimes knowing a word's origin can forever change your view of the word. You probably think of the word feisty the way I once did: an often pleasant adjective meaning 'spunky'. You might describe Ross Perot as feisty, meaning full of spirit. If you guessed feisty comes from the root feist meaning 'spirit', guess again.

Please, pardon my bluntness. I could do it several times longer than I normally could. Once, I believe I must have gone at it for 12 hours, using up all the lubricants, shampoos, cooking oils, and even toothpastes I could find in my home, even fruit preserves.

If you watch TV, you can’t do better than TV Ultra.

...less like Big Brother than "a friendly uncle and aunt watching over you."

"The excessive precautions were a victory for those who wanted to disrupt Davos," said George Soros, the billionaire financier whose prowess at playing the capital markets has troubled governments from Britain to Malaysia. "I do think these people have something to protest about. The global capital system creates a very uneven playing field."

Good Works is a national directory of social change organizations and is the first directory to present alternatives to traditional corporate employment. This directory, now in its fifth edition, lists the aims and projects of over 1000 organizations and provides background information on contacts, starting salaries and benefits, types of staff openings, available internships, annual budget and funding sources, and the application process.

This is cool: download DC’s own Go-Go, Hip Hop, and more from mp3.washingtonpost.com!

The pseudoephedrine contained in many "non-drowsy" drugs like these is really an amphetamine in disguise, differing from methamphetamine by only one oxygen atom, a proton and a symmetry operation. These differences are sufficient, however, for the stimulant effects to be hindered by the passage of pseudoephedrine molecules across the blood-brain membrane, plus orders of magnitude difference in its activity where it counts - the dopamine neurons.

“The White Man’s Burden” and Its Critics is a collection of resources edited by Jim Zwick.

Slavery slipped into an unholy marriage with state's rights doctrine in American memory, and despite decades of persuasive scholarship, the divorce has never been completed.

We get this one all the time. Our workshop uses simple white turkey feathers that are then dyed yellow.

I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.

Robot Wisdom trifecta:

• Close-up of Mir
• Earth, Moon, and Mir
• Danger of climate change to civilization

The Virginia Senate voted yesterday to let Fairfax County prohibit its residents from sleeping anywhere but their bedrooms, a measure that some activists and local officials say unfairly targets the living arrangements of the county's burgeoning immigrant communities.

I understand the interest. I grew up in a small town in Kentucky where they shot a series called Centennial, and I followed Raymond Burr around everywhere he went.

I don't think that what I'm doing is necessarily left versus right. What I'm addressing is top versus bottom. If I'm not spending a lot of time making fun of the more extreme elements of the Green Party, it's because what I do is to critique power.

<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/85682/2023/0f9e2217d0.jpg" height=“108” width=“128” alt=“sisyphus” / border=“1”>
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

I love a site that uses background images with abandon. How come you rarely see that anymore?

When you have some time, read through Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor from The Brothers Karamazov – but be warned that it will take something apart deep inside of you and leave you with no idea how to reassemble the pieces.

Is it me, or is subterranean notes: art on the web back in action?

I’m very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very excited to see that World New York is back, and equally sad to see arblog go.

Recipes, crafts, and other activities inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House.