Happy "Blogaversary" Radley!

My friend (and fellow IU alum) Radley Balko is celebrating 6 years of writing the Agitator -- one of my favorite blogs and certainly the best I've seen on police abuse and legal corruption issues. If you haven't checked the site out, please do so here.

Bring Me the Head of Kelvin Sampson

Fire him, NOW.

Everyone knows how I feel about Bobby (and I did want to write something about his retirement, but work has been a mother recently) -- and many of my friends have been critical of my of my devotion to him. But this latest from Sampson illustrates why Bobby was indeed so great and so special.

Coach Knight, for all his imperfections, ran a clean program the right way. Indiana is a program that represents a team -- not individuals. I am proud that no Indiana jersey bears a player's name. I am proud that no jerseys hang from the rafters at Assembly Hall. Rarely did we have the most talented team in the conference, let alone the nation -- yet Coach Knight was able to deliver three national titles to Bloomington in addition to a slew of Big Ten crowns.

But Coach is gone and never coming back.

However, this does not mean we have to become like so many other major programs in America; essentially NBADL teams from which the pros can take their picks. I could not have cared less if we landed Eric Gordon -- he'll be gone after this year and then what? I want IU to field a team of good players who will grow into good men that graduate from college. It is far more important to run a team with honor and less-talented players than it is to win at all costs.

Sampson's actions have further degraded IU Basketball and he should be removed from his position immediately. To hell with the rest of the season -- IU Basketball is far greater and more important than one season lost.

This is not about Bobby. This is about restoring IU's tradition -- not just of winning -- but of playing basketball as a team and building up young men to become leaders, not cheaters.

The War on Drugs Supports Terrorism

I don't know if the ads still run, but I remember shortly after September 11 happened, the Bush Administration and the Drug-Free America nitwits ran ads claiming that if you smoked marijuana, you were supporting terror. I dismissed the ad at the time because so much of America's marijuana is domestic or from the Western Hemisphere.

Yet, the Times of London reports that the Taliban are looking to rake in £50 million ($100 million) from the elicit trade of opium and the ganj:

Afghanistan, which produces 90 per cent of the world's illegal opium, is also expected to increase its output of marijuana, according to the survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Notice the words "illegal opium." Opium is used as a base for many perfectly legal (yet regulated via prescription) pharmaceuticals. Maybe, just maybe, if the world's nations decriminalized possession and sale of opiates and marijuana, (making production less risky thus driving down operating costs) the Taliban wouldn't be profiting off of our drug war in order to kill our soldiers.

Just a thought.

UPDATE: Apparently great minds think alike. H&R just put up a post on the Drug-Free spots here. #9 is one example of the terror/drugs connection, but not the one I was thinking of.

While your there, check out KMW's post on Romney, porn, and black babies.

Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em

My friend Jamie Dettmer has an interesting post on Cato @ Liberty:

The study, undertaken by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Holland, found that ultimately healthy people, who live on average four years longer than obese people and seven years longer than smokers, cost the health system about $417,000 from the age of 20 compared to $371,000 for obese people and $326,000 for smokers.

Would you look at that? Strike two against the smoking-ban argument. (Strike one is the infringement on business owners allowing their customers to smoke on private property).

A Rebuttal

Dear GOP,

It's not us, it's you.

Sincerely,

The Reagan-Goldwaterites

As penned by Radley Balko.

Going to New Orleans

Not that I have been the best about keeping up my blog recently, but work has actually been work recently. (I'm actually quite happy about that.)

But, no blogging til at least next Tuesday. Going to party at Mardi Gras. I feel I am doing my part to stimulate the Gulf Coast Economy.

Hell, I can't do a worse job than FEMA.

Paying Kids to 'Rat'

In an era where kids get suspended for touching and hugging in school, it is not hard to find examples of school administrators going overboard. Yet this story strikes me as particularly troubling:

School administrators in Howard County have decided to continue offering cash to students for informing on their classmates, a practice that was sharply criticized after a high school principal offered to pay for information about a cafeteria food fight in December.

The school defends the practice:

"These are criminal actions to a large extent," she said, mentioning hate crimes, destruction of school property and the pulling of a fire alarm as examples of incidents that could warrant offering reward money. Students apprehended in such situations, she said, "are still given due process."

Exactly where do food fights fall between racially-motivated beatings and throwing cherry bombs in toilets?

Who knows? This may be a good thing. After all, paying confidential informants always works well in the real world.