Reason Morning Links: Newspapers Out of Black Ink, Obama's All Ears, Treatment-Oriented Drug Czar

- Wall Street Journal poll of 49 economists finds low marks for Obama, Geithner handling of the economy.

- Obama's drug czar nominee signals the administration will approach the drug war with an emphasis on treatment over incarceration.

- Which large American city will be the first without a major daily newspaper?

- Europe debates castration for sex offenders.

- Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) first state leader to reject portion of stimulus funds.

- Omnibus spending bill Obama just signed included a record 8,500 earmarks, including some inserted by his own chief of staff.

Comments

[Tym]

His pick for FDA apparently supports needle exchange as well.

[Bob]

The third link "the first without a major daily newspaper?" just goes to the second story about drug czars.

[Xeones]

You SugarFreed the newspaper link, Radley.

[jester]

49 out of 10 bazillion. That's what Nancy Pelosi told me just two minutes ago!

[buster]

Maybe Radley meant to link to this?

I would love to see more statistics from that WSJ article. The main criticism is that Obama and Geithner are moving too slowly, but I'd really like to know what other criticisms are on the list. I mean, what sort of results can you expect when: Some 43% [of the economists] said the U.S. will need another stimulus package on the order of nearly $500 billion. Others were skeptical of the need for stimulus at all. How many economists graded Obama and Geither poorly for exactly opposite reasons (moving too slow vs. moving too fast)?

[jester]

Here's the link to newspapers shutting down. Right Radley? Right?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html

[jester]

Castration? Really? Balls to the Walls.

God what a distraction of real problems. Sounds good to us: "Fuck! What would I do without my balls?"

Reality: 'Balls to the wall now that my balls hang not near my wall, I will revenge whoever into my path falls.'

[The Angry Optimist]

is it Cleveland? CLEVELAND?!

That's what they get for inflicting Dennis Kucinich on us.

[TofuSushi]

They are trying to silence Dennis Kucinich by shutting down the Cleveland newspapers?

I hope president Obama sends in federal troops and lots of money, just like Kennedy did in Arkansas.

This is a new civil rights crisis that should not be passed up.

[FrBunny]

Castration? Really? Balls to the Walls.

God what a distraction of real problems. Sounds good to us: "Fuck! What would I do without my balls?"

Reality: 'Balls to the wall now that my balls hang not near my wall, I will revenge whoever into my path falls.'

I wish I could get high at 9am. Goodonya.

[Xeones]

Creationist, shmreationist. Mark Sanford's a solid dude.

[Episiarch]

I wish I could get high at 9am.

Does Vicodin count? Because then I'm high too.

[SugarFree]

Which large American city will be the first without a relevant daily newspaper?

All of them.

[Citizen Nothing]

Honolulu still has two daily newspapers.
Hmmmmmmm.

[FrBunny]

Does Vicodin count?

Just remembered the Xanax in my desk drawer! Epi, you're a saint. A foul, foul saint.

[sage]

Just a reminder
Tomorrow is haiku day
I'm starting early

[SugarFree]

I got 60 Xanax from my mom (leftovers) and it took me months to trade them away for something useful. Even a tiny chip off of a Xanax just knocks me out. I have interesting nightmares, but I'd rather have Vicodin and a Rockstar.

After the revolution, Epi and I will sell both in a single preparation we plan to call Vicostar!

[Citizen Nothing]

Yeah, modern newspaper reporters and editors can be sanctimonious prigs, drunk on all that "public interest" and "fourth estate" nonsense.
But my paper recently helped get two wrongly convicted men out of prison. Small potatoes, sure. But do you thing the parole board or state prison system would give a rat's ass about some blogger doing the same story?

[Xeones]

Rub it in, guys. Some of us have to get through a Thursday with nothing but shitty office coffee for an intoxicant.

[TofuSushi]

I got high just hearing the word "kitten" as I made breakfast for my friends this morning.

[FrBunny]

Even a tiny chip off of a Xanax just knocks me out.

Alas, I've noticed the same thing lately. Vicodin is like being tickled by the noodles of the FSM himself; I'm just too chicken to seek it out.

The worst part? There are two MDs in my immediate family, and they are both drug warriors. That green scrip pad taunts me at every holiday gathering.

[Episiarch]

Just remembered the Xanax in my desk drawer! Epi, you're a saint. A foul, foul saint.

(wipes tear from eye)

Thanks, dude.

After the revolution, Epi and I will sell both in a single preparation we plan to call Vicostar!

Dude, you are on the money. I in fact did have a Sugar Free Rockstar with my Vicodin, and it. Is. Good.

Just think of the concoctions the free market would create if drugs were legalized. Coca-Cola could have cocaine in it again! And therefore I might actually drink it again!

[TofuSushi]

Epi,

I use Coca-Cola as a glaze for my excellent TofuHam.

[SugarFree]

FrBunny,

It's a bit of a long shot, but the next time you go to the doctor with a dry cough, tell them you are coughing up blood (flecks not bloody, clotted phlegm) and then tell them you are allergic to codeine. I got a doctor to give me liquid hydrocodone (Vicodin) once. Awesome.

Of course, I was actually coughing up blood due to double pneumonia, but the principle should be the same.

[bookworm]

"Some 43% [of the economists] said the U.S. will need another stimulus package on the order of nearly $500 billion."

I was hoping that after Obama's stimulus package fails, that finally, FINALLY, people would realize that Keynesianism doesn't work. I'm not so optimistic now. When it fails, Keynesians will just say that not a large enough stimulus package was tried.

[Episiarch]

I got a doctor to give me liquid hydrocodone (Vicodin) once.

Pedant alert: Vicodin is not hydrocodone. It is hydrocodone with Tylenol. Liquid hydrocodone would presumably not have Tylenol, which would ROCK, because you could take a shitload without hepatotoxicity issues.

[FrBunny]

SugarFree,

I was prescribed Tussionex recently when I had the flu. Sounds similar, and it made for a relatively pleasant work week. (Yeah, I still worked with the flu. I'm that girl.) Taking it without the flu? Now that would have been nice.

[Geoff Nathan]

What the article about newspapers didn't mention was that at least one of the Detroit newspapers is offering a subscription-based online edition that's really pretty cool for the days they don't deliver. We're actually thinking about buying a breakfast-table-friendly netbook/tablet/something-or-other so that we can read it M-Th.

You can see it at Digital Free Press (click on the 'Visit today's edition' link).

I agree with the poster above that 'some blogger' won't have the same effect as a major newspaper going after a story--without the Freep's dogged determination we would still have Kwame Kilpatrick as mayor. Not that I think a bail-out is a solution--things are bad enough without government-owned newspapers.

[SugarFree]

Epi,

Sadly, it did still contain Tylenol. If Wikipedia is correct, there's no way to legally buy hydrocodone in America unless it is mixed with Tylenol.

Oxycontin is oxycodone without Tylenol in an extended release form, but there doesn't seem to be an equivilent hydro product.

[Episiarch]

If Wikipedia is correct, there's no way to legally buy hydrocodone in America unless it is mixed with Tylenol.

It is also mixed with ibuprofen and aspirin under various brands. But if you want (nearly) pure hydrocodone, cold water extraction is the way to go.

[SugarFree]

FrBunny,

Very close to what I had, except it didn't have chlorpheniramine. They may not make it any longer. The improbably cute intern I saw a couple of weeks ago for my third round of bronchitis for the year couldn't find it in her PDR.

[FrBunny]

From a dozen lifetimes ago, I remember that Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet, etc were all just different mixes of hydrocodone / APAP. One of them was 10mg hydrocodone and only 500mg APAP, making it the best and safest to "abuse" IIRC.

'Course that's when you could buy milk for a nickel and certain folk weren't allowed on golf courses.

[Episiarch]

One of them was 10mg hydrocodone and only 500mg APAP, making it the best and safest to "abuse" IIRC.

Norco can be 10 hydro/325 APAP. It is THE SHIT. I once took several of those and then wandered through the woods while it was raining, crossed a few streams and walked through and ignored stinging nettles on my completely random route home. Good times.

[Reinmoose]

I don't get the obsession with earmarks. It's a complete distraction from the real problem - that there are so many spending bills to earmark.

It's like increasing the amount of ice cream you eat every day by a few percent a year, you're now up to a gallon a day, and blaming the use of corn syrup in your ice cream for why you're getting increasingly obese.

[SugarFree]

Reinmoose,

A deliciously apt analogy.

[Xeones]

Mmm... ice cream. OM NOM NOM

[SugarFree]

Vicodin ice cream. So full and sleepy...

[Reinmoose]

Vicodin ice cream. So full and sleepy...

Vice cream?

[FrBunny]

Opie's cream?

[Zero Tolerance]

"Europe debates castration for sex offenders."

I prefer they get a bullet in the head.

[BakedPenguin]

Oxy Road.
Neapolitab.

[Citizen Nothing]

Yeah, Z.T.
All those 18-year-olds who got blowjobs from their 16-year-old girlfriends surely deserve death.

[SugarFree]

Ben and Jerry's Amy Winehouse Crunch

[Episiarch]

Butter Percocet

Cocaine Chip

Cookies 'n' Chronic

Chocolate Valium Truffle

[P Brooks]

"We have taken an unprecedented level of action toward economic recovery, accomplishing in weeks what took other countries years to do," Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker said. "While Wall Street and investors were disappointed when they didn't get a sweeping bank bailout, we've laid out a plan to stabilize the financial system while protecting the taxpayer and ensuring government funds are spent wisely. This crisis was years in the making, and it will take time to solve."

we've laid out a plan to stabilize the financial system while protecting the taxpayer and ensuring government funds are spent wisely. For some reason, I hear this in Steven Wright's voice.

[Zero Tolerance]

"All those 18-year-olds who got blowjobs from their 16-year-old girlfriends surely deserve death."

My, how fucking obtuse.

If you actually read the article, you would learn that unlike the vaguely worded headline, they are talking about violent sex offenders. You know, the kind that kill their victims.

So yeah, if those 18-year-old recipients of bj's killed their 16-year-old fellators, then yes, bullet to the head.

[Nick]

CN, that shouldn't even be a crime. Hell, it should be a requirement.

Anyway, the pedophiles should be brutally beaten, set on fire, and then drowned...whatever the most painful deaths are.

[Citizen Nothing]

Hey, Z.T.
You're the one who put the "vaguely worded" headline in your own comment.

Talk about, and I'm quoting here, "fucking obtuse."

[FrBunny]

You know, the kind that kill their victims.

That's murder. Castration is an odd proposal for murderers.

[SugarFree]

Would you guys quit with the triangle insults?

[FrBunny]

Are they afraid they'll impregnate someone from prison? Or do they have a habit of releasing convicted rapist / murderers early?

[Citizen Nothing]

SF, you're fucking acute.

(But fucking a cute what, is what we want to know.)

[FrBunny]

Would you guys quit with the triangle insults?

You're right. 🙂

[SugarFree]

SF, you're fucking acute.

I just knew someone would have to drop the A-bomb.

[BakedPenguin]

These threads always go off on some tangent.

[SugarFree]

It all equilaterals out in the end.

[FrBunny]

Sine of times, I'm afraid.

[Citizen Nothing]

Secant and ye shall find...

[FrBunny]

Trigonometic, boogie woogie woogie.

[SugarFree]

Triangle man, Triangle Man
Triangle man hates Person Man
They have a fight, Triangle wins
Triangle Man

[Nick]

Yo, fuck Pythagoras.

[FrBunny]

Or trigonometRic. Xanax kicking in...

[SugarFree]

Did Piers Anthony ever make a Xanax joke in a Xanth novel? I sure hope so.

[Xeones]

Yo, fuck Piers Anthony. We have established this.

[SugarFree]

If you're not well-read enough to give me an answer, Xeones, it's OK to admit it.

[Bob]

Yeah, Z.T.
All those 18-year-olds who got blowjobs from their 16-year-old girlfriends surely deserve death.

Nor should those guys who got caught pissing on the side of the road. Those who murdered and or violently raped the victim should be rolled around in broken glass, doused with acid, then lit on fire with gasoline, one limb at a time.

[FrBunny]

Those who murdered and or violently raped the victim should be rolled around in broken glass, [etc. etc. etc.]

Pair this with our legal system's flawless record on getting the right guy, and what could possibly go wrong? (Hint: see the current print edition cover story.)

[Citizen Nothing]

And I imagine Z.T. and Bob would buy tickets to watch.

[FrBunny]

"These criminals are sadistic and depraved. Quick, let's throw feces at them, dismember them, and dance as we burn their corpses!"

From the But-Mom-They-Started-It school of morality.

[Fred]

We need to reduce our prison population. It is too full of non-violent drug offenders, prison should be for repeat offenders. First timers should be sent thru drug court and given treatment.

[Bob]

Pair this with our legal system's flawless record on getting the right guy, and what could possibly go wrong? (Hint: see the current print edition cover story.)

True, we need to be sure it is the rite guy first.