Reason Morning Links: Eight Years of War in Afghanistan, Czar Hearings, Rape Rate Hits New Low

• Afghanistan war enters its ninth year.

• U.S. Senate holds hearings on constitutionality of "czars."

• Reported rapes in the U.S. fall to a 20-year low.

• State laws allowing for mom n' pop marijuana grows cutting into Mexican cartels' bottom line.

• Egypt may ban fake hymens.

Comments

[Xeones]

If fake hymens are outlawed, only outlaws will have fake hymens.

[Kevin]

Reported rapes in the U.S. fall to a 20-year low.

How long has Roman Polanski been out of the country?

[John Thacker]

Rape Rate Hits New Low

So help me, I read that as "Rape Rape Hits New Low" and thought that Whoopi had said something else or someone was defending her.

[Abdul]

From the article:
Reported rapes have fallen to the lowest level in 20 years as DNA evidence helps send more rapists to prison and victims are more willing to work with police and prosecutors, victims advocates and crime researchers say.

That makes sense, but couldn't the drop in rape also be related to the heavy-handed sex offender laws?

[comrade]

What about reported rape rapes?

[P Brooks]

Egypt may ban fake hymens.

Fake hymens are a RIGHT!

[sage]

? Egypt may ban fake hymens.

Oh, please. How hard could it be to make your own?

[sage]

Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.

PLEASE LET THEM FIGURE IT OUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!

[R C Dean]

sage, the Drug Warriors either (1) already know their little project is an abject failure or (2) don't care.

We've been piling facts on their concrete heads for decades, and it hasn't made any difference.

[SugarFree]

Reported rapes in the U.S. fall to a 20-year low.

Finally there is an upside to the obesity epidemic.

[sage]

I think, RC, that it's both. The drug warriors and drug cartels have a symbiotic relationship; the need each other. The home grows that are going on threaten both of them. The obvious solution is to kick in the doors and shoot the dogs of the people with a few plants in their garage. It's a work in progress.