Around the blogs

Blogger has been a little ornery this week. It's pokey and it ate my last post yesterday but I'm hoping to update the template and get some posts up in those intermittent moments when it's working well.

Trying to keep up on the reading here and there's items of interest in the bloggerhood. D'Alliance has fresh news on Roger Magbie's unjust death at the hands of Judge Retchin. Not only was the judge contacted by the jail one day after Magbie's incarceration with an inquiry on how to transfer the man to a hospital, he was also told that Magbie needed a respirator. And in a bitter twist of irony, it turns out that as a child, Magbie on stage with Ron Reagan as a part of a proclamation for National Respiratory Therapy Week. Baylen also points us to an excellent editorial on the subject.

Drug WarRant was the first to tell me that the two most reform friendly but regrettably unelectable candidates, Libertarian Michael Badnarik and Green David Cobb were arrested at the debates last night. Pete also posts more on his favorite target, drug task forces.

Vice Squad looks at an Illinois town that punishes its drinking and non-drinking teens equally badly and rightly points out, "If you punish the innocent and guilty alike, the incentive to be innocent is diminished."

TalkLeft posts an interesting thought from Pat Roberts who reminds us giving the Democrats a majority control in the House of Representatives, would mean John Conyers, D-MI, a drug war policy reform advocate, will become the first Black chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

And finally this week's issue of DRC Net's newsletter is especially good. There's a lot on the election and don't miss the piece on the (DEA) Diversion Control Program's removal of a set of frequently asked questions and responses designed to ease doctors' fears of persecution by the agency for prescribing opioid pain relievers from their website.