A Thousand Cuts » automobiles

This blog is not backed by the United States government.

Brian Martinez — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:47:59 +0000

158. A pistol-packin’ granny caps a would-be mugger in Manhattan and gets sued for her trouble.

159. Puppycide in Buffalo during a police raid that fails to turn up any drugs or make any arrests.

160. Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, no friend of fugitives, illegal immigrants or civil rights, spends an unknown amount of taxpayers’ money on production costs for a Fox reality show. Then his boys arrest some people applauding a speech critical of Arpaio during a county supervisors meeting. And Phoenix police raid the home of a blogger who’s been criticizing them.

161. I’m from the government, and I’m here to check out that funny noise under the hood: President Obama can’t save the banks or balance the budget, but he’s now backing your transmission. More details about the warranty from those helpful folks at reason:

162. “One of liberty’s great benefactors”, Burt Blumert, chairman of the Mises Institute and a champion of many libertarian causes, passes away at the age of 80.

163. After a student is kicked in the groin, a Connecticut school bans all physical contact. Because today’s hug could be tomorrow’s headlock.

164. Michigan woman charged for her son’s stay in juvie hall, then is sent to jail herself after she’s unable to pay.

165. More than half of California’s service stations face hefty fines or even closure for failing to install expensive vapor recovery nozzles on their pumps. The CARB-mandated systems run about $11,000 per pump.

166. Congress seeks to give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco, while also limiting safer choices for people looking to cut back or quit.

167. Speaking of tobacco, remember Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000? Well, he lied, unless you think only rich people smoke. They don’t, at least not as much as the poor do, making the new cigarette tax increase highly regressive.

Clunkers, cops and cluelessness.

Brian Martinez — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:49:35 +0000

Attorney General Eric Holder has clarified the new administration’s medical marijuana policy (see #145) by stating that the DEA will only go after pot dealers who violate both state and Federal law; i.e., anyone not sanctioned by a state where medical marijuana is legal. So dispensaries in California and patients in Colorado with cultivation licenses should be safe from the Feds, but not illicit dealers. It’s still not clear what this means for cases already pending in Federal courts, so it may not save Charlie Lynch, who was a licensed medical marijuana dealer in California but was tried and convicted on Federal charges, from a lengthy prison term. And it does nothing to address the fundamentally broken drug policies at the Federal level.

On to the Daily Cuts:

148. After a six-year battle with the Feds over obscenity charges, two porn film entrepreneurs plead guilty to reduced charges, earning them up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a far cry from the five decades they faced on the original indictment. As Jacob Sullum points out, the prosecutor, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, “seems to be a sincere moral crusader and therefore a public menace”.

149. Even though members of their own party seem lukewarm on the idea, it appears that the Obama administration still doesn’t have enough on its plate, and wants to add a revival of the Federal assault weapons ban. This time it’s not for the children, but for the poor Mexicans caught in the crossfire of a vicious drug war. Of course, if we Americans would just stop being such loser dope fiends, we wouldn’t need a drug war in the first place.

150. A Congresswoman from Ohio introduces a real clunker of a bill: $5,000 for any car you can drag to a dealership, to be applied towards the purchase of a new car. Of course the automakers are supportive of this boondoggle.

151. Comic relief: What, would you rather have the cops kicking in your door?