or are war and drugs necessarily intertwined symptoms of a social disease (capitalism)?

At least 350,000 American vets are being treated for substance abuse. This article, “It’s easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan,” argues that a significant number of vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are acquiring addictions to heroin. The official military estimates are propagandistically low (0-2%), while expert research on Vietnam vets has shown that about 5% became addicted. Why would the military want to hide these numbers? -> For many reasons… 1) how can you “support the troops” when the troops become drug addicts, and thereby are associated with the types of people who are villified domestically? 2) if the troops image is tarnished in this way, then the friend/enemy distinction breaks down, because the troops are seen as having the enemy within themselves; 3) if we at home identify with the troops, then we would also be inspired to search within ourselves for the source of the world’s problems, rather than blaming and villifying foreign Other as ‘terrorists’… etc.

I just watched the president speaking about what the Fox News chyron called “the war on terror”, aka the war in Iraq. Fox assured me that “some” are critical of the Iraq policy, but that Bush just gave a strong response. I love how Fox doesn’t just show the speech, they explain why the speech was strong and right. If the speech was unclear, they fix up the argument.

Anyway, the new argument is that “new intelligence” reveals that Al Qaida in Iraq reports to Bin Laden, which is why we have to fight them in Iraq. Another twist on the classic “using the troops as bait” argument, which seems to play with somebody. But I just think its amazing the White House thinks we are so stupid as to accept the new argument for staying in Iraq is that being in Iraq is attracting terrorists there.

There are still people that support the war. Based on their postings on the internet, this is how they think:

Normal Human: “This war was a terrible mistake”

Crazy Wingnut: “We were attacked on 9/11!! 3,000 people died! Don’t you get it? Don’t you people understand? Its a mad house, A MAD HOUSE!”

Normal Human: ???

I love this topic. But these decisions suck. I will let Vijay explain why.

Interesting, I was on the home page of Yahoo News and nothing about the supreme court was there. But there was the important story of the Cameron Diaz’s purse and some breaking news about a judge’s pants. Thanks, media!

4/29 Truth Movement is GO!

Jokes aside, I thought of this when the freeway melted. If only the 9/11 Truth true believers would stop showing up at war protests.

You know, I thought the loud speakers and the anarchist patches were totally selling this angle on 9-11. But now that I have seen the crazy purple bird costume I am convinced: OMG!!1 9-11 was an inside job!

via: Crooked Timber

We are now big time!:

Remember last week when Glenn Reynolds was widely lambasted by the Left for suggesting that the United States should be assassinating Iran’s radical mullahs and atomic scientists?

That’s right folks, a minor right wing blog has cited this one as the Left. We are now big time. (FYI, we get <10 unique views a day.)

But can the 9/11 Truth movement please go have their own protests? Every time I see these people at a war protest I am embarrassed for all of us and I just hope they don’t end up on the news. There is no point in debunking their claims here, but people, 9/11 was an inside job the same way dinosaurs died in Noah’s flood. This has been the worst administration ever, but there is no evidence, none, that they actually committed mass murder on that scale (in the US anyway).

Check out the Times story on Morse v. Frederick, 06-27

A high school senior’s 14-foot banner proclaiming ”Bong Hits 4 Jesus” gave the Supreme Court a provocative prop for a lively argument Monday about the extent of schools’ control over student speech.

If the justices conclude Joseph Frederick’s homemade sign was a pro-drug message, they are likely to side with principal Deborah Morse. She suspended Frederick in 2002 when he unfurled the banner across the street from the school in Juneau, Alaska.

”I thought we wanted our schools to teach something, including something besides just basic elements, including the character formation and not to use drugs,” Chief Justice Roberts said Monday.

But the court could rule for Frederick if it determines that he was, as he has contended, conducting a free-speech experiment using a nonsensical message that contained no pitch for drug use.

…

This case is ridiculous in many ways. However, I think that the two sides are setting up a false dichotomy between seeing the sign as a pro-drug message or as “a free-speech experiment using a nonsensical message.” Why not see it as a pro-Jesus message? This case calls for some scriptural interpretation, if only Scalia would take his originalism seriously.