Texas troubadour Willie Nelson this week got busted again for pot possession. If you thought that arrests for marijuana were on the decrease in this country, you’d be wrong. Last year, some 786,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana violations — a record number and twice the number of pot arrests made in 1990, according to NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
“This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism,” said NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre.
He’s right, isn’t he? Is it worth spending $10 billion to $12 billion a year on enforcement of marijuana laws to bust casual (OK, maybe not so casual) tokers like Nelson? Aren’t there more important priorities for law enforcement? What do you think?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Something President Bush reportedly said in a meeting with conservative talk-radio hosts last week puts this week’s United Nations address in a somewhat different context. Radio talker Mike Gallagher — who was at a Bush session along with Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Michael Medved — said the president told them the war on terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Professors at the University of Kansas are criticizing the university’s recent decision to drop an anti-plagiarism Internet program, Turnitin.com, that they say is their most effective tool for catching academic cheats.
“This is like leaving a door to a bank unlocked,” KU political science professor Phil Schrodt told the Lawrence Journal-World. “Turnitin is a rational response to a problem. The problem is that a student can now download tens of thousands of term papers at the click of the mouse.”
About 38 percent of college undergraduate students say they’ve done cut-and-paste liftings from Internet sources for academic papers, according to a 2005 Rutgers University survey.
KU officials cite the software’s $22,000 cost, but isn’t ensuring academic honesty and the value of a college degree worth that cost?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., told The Eagle’s Alan Bjerga Wednesday that he still hasn’t made up his mind whether to support or oppose President Bush’s attempts to legally sanction interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation, stress positions and other practices that opponents say amount to torture.
“We will not walk away from our Geneva Convention obligations,” he said. “I want to listen to what my colleagues have to say.”
It’s good he’s listening, but as we said in Tuesday’s editorial, it would be better if this conservative champion of human rights were leading on this issue.
Or have Brownback’s presidential aspirations complicated his moral principles?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
So far, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ re-election campaign seems to be enjoying smooth sailing, but it did hit some turbulence Wednesday morning — literally.
The governor told The Eagle editorial board that her official plane had been heading down a Topeka runway for takeoff when it hit a flock of seagulls. The plane had to taxi back to the terminal for inspection.
No one was hurt, thankfully, but the seagulls didn’t make it.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Heads of state, like diplomats, rarely say quite what they mean, so I suppose it’s refreshing when one of them does.
Hugo Chavez, for example. Addressing the United Nations Wednesday, the president of Venezuela referred to President Bush as “the devil.”
“The devil came here yesterday,” Chavez said of Bush’s earlier U.N. appearance. “He came here talking as if he were the owner of the world.”
Lest his point be missed, Chavez went on to complain that Bush had left an odor of sulfur at the lectern.
I’m going to guess Hugo won’t be dining at the White House.
Posted by Dave Knadler
