National Prohibition, that so-called “Noble Experiment,” only lasted thirteen years

The War on Drugs, on the other hand, turns 40 on Friday.

NPR points out (H/T Uncle) that the spending on this unwinnable war is unjustifiable; the Obama administration disagrees.

Gary Johnson agrees, and said, “In my view, in terms of individual liberties and fiscal responsibility, opposition to the drug war is perfectly consistent with true Republican Party values.”

I don’t know if ending the drug war and decriminalizing the various currently illegal drugs would affect crime rates; my gut feeling is that they would go down, much like bootlegging (mostly) ended with the repeal of Prohibition.

I do know that at this point, continuing the drug war is merely throwing good money after bad; thinking that we have to continue fighting against the scourge of illegal drugs because of how much we’ve spent is merely falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy.

The money we’ve wasted in the War on Drugs is gone forever. We can’t get it back.

What we can do is stop spending more money on it, immediately.

It’s not much, but it would be a good start towards reining in the government and reclaiming our civil liberties; how many of them have been sacrificed already due to the war on drugs?

The Last Wolf Suite

Rurouni Kenshin (localized as Samurai X for the OVAs and movies) is a anime/manga series set during the early years of Meiji Japan (ten years after the restoration).

It follows the reluctant adventures of the wandering swordsman, Kenshin Himura, who has sworn not to kill; he caused enough bloodshed during the Meiji Restoration, fighting against the forces of the Shogunate. He was renowned as a great killer during the war, but in the comparatively peaceful Meiji era, he’s trying to atone for his past.

While the series at first is Kenshin defending the helpless from the bad guy of the week, real meat of the plot hits in the second season, when Kenshin is recruited by the government to stop his replacement, Makoto Shishio, who went rogue after the restoration and is trying to topple the country once more.

This music plays during parts of Kenshin’s battle with the government’s agent, Hajime Saito (known during the war as the Lone Wolf of Mibu); before recruiting him to take out Shishio, they wanted to make sure that the legendary killer’s skills hadn’t atrophied.

During the war, they fought on opposite sides. In their battle, they slip back into their old rivalries.

It’s the best fight in the whole series.

What could possibly go wrong?

The FBI have been given the okay to “push privacy bounds.”  (H/T Andy Levy)

Great.

The final paragraph reads:

Ms. Caproni said the new manual would adjust the definition of assessments to make clear that they must be based on leads. But she rejected arguments that the F.B.I. should focus only on investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing.

…

This is insane.

Sure, why shouldn’t the FBI restrict itself to “investigations that begin with a firm reason for suspecting wrongdoing”?

So any tenuous reason will do?

Probable cause? What’s that?