Chris Kissel at our sister station, PubliCola, mentioned [see UPDATE 2] that the three challenges the Sounders would face in Dallas were red cards, heat, and arrogance. In the end though, it was a blown offsides call that cost them a win yesterday.

UPDATE: From the comments, here’s another view of the goal that makes it look like Rocha was just barely onside. Either way, the Sounders didn’t look their best yesterday.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFNVnpUbicU[/youtube]

UPDATE 2: Chris mentions below that while he posted that up, he did not write it himself. It was written by SoundersNerd.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Salem, OR. That was two in a row for our friend in the midwest. This one’s for the pros, good luck!

Goldy promised the attorney who was demanding that we take down a post ridiculing her that he wouldn’t reveal her identity. I did not make that same promise.

Newly confirmed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske sounds ready to start fixing the decades-long disaster known as the drug war:

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

I think Kerlikowske, the Obama Administration, and the traditional media are going to be surprised at how uncontroversial it is to take this stance. And not just here in Seattle, but across the country. People are sick and tired of this war and all the violence it causes. More and more Americans understand the relationship between the drug war and the unraveling of Mexico and recognize that what we’re dealing with is equivalent to what we dealt with during alcohol prohibition. You can tell how unpopular the drug war is becoming when news outlets have to resort to Stephen Baldwin to provide counterpoints against the reformers.

– Reform-friendly Gil Kerlikowske was approved in a 91-1 vote by the Senate to be the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A recent Zogby poll showed that a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana. And Governor Schwarzenegger in California says it’s time for a debate about it. What can go wrong?

This:

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., will serve as Crime and Drugs Subcommittee chairman.

…

An unidentified Democratic Party source told CNN the decision to give Specter the chairmanship of the subcommittee was intended to help him get re-elected and to avoid any conflict as the Judiciary Committee considers a Supreme Court nomination.

I’m trying to come up with a positive way to interpret that, but I can’t.

– Mexico is following the lead of Portugal and appears ready to decriminalize low-level drug possession. This won’t affect their war on the cartels since their customer base is up north, but it’s worth noting two things: 1) The Obama Administration isn’t interfering like the Bush Administration did the last time Mexico tried this; and 2) Mexico’s drug policy is now far more progressive than ours.

– After a vanity license plate in Colorado was rejected for potentially being interpreted as obscene, a state Senator lashed out at the ACLU by saying that he wanted a license plate that says ACLUSUX. The ACLU responded by saying that they’d represent him if the plate is rejected. I’ve always wondered why there’s so much animosity towards the ACLU, but I think I get it now. With so many people who demand to have a different set of rules for themselves than for everyone else, the most terrifying thing is an organization that prides itself on intellectual consistency with respect to our rights.

– The medical marijuana community in Seattle lost a very good friend recently. Longtime patient advocate Dennis Moyers passed away. I found Dennis to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful people to discuss medical marijuana with. His years as a patient himself gave him great insight into the battle that’s been waged to deny people from taking a medicine that they’ve discovered to be tremendously beneficial. His latest effort was to encourage the Obama Administration to set up liaison within the Federal government to meet with medical marijuana patients and develop smart policy. The online petition is here.

Last week’s contest was solved in record time, 4 minutes, by longtime champ milwhcky. It was the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City. That record will probably stand for a while because it will be a while before I put up another picture that easy. :)

Here’s this week’s, good luck (and Happy Mother’s Day)!

Yesterday, TPM unearthed this gem from 1986. It’s a CBS News report on Jeff Sessions being voted down by the Senate Judiciary Committee because he was considered to be too racially insensitive:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_BVAoxvylo[/youtube]

Now that Arlen Specter has become a Democrat, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions will become the ranking Republican on that very same Senate Judiciary Committee. TPM has even more:

When it became clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was poised to become ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, we recalled this 2002 article by Sarah Wildman which addresses some of the controversies that kept Sessions from being confirmed in 1986 as a U.S. District Court judge in Alabama.

Wildman writes in particular that the testimonies of two witnesses–a Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, and a black Sessions subordinate named Thomas Figures–helped to doom Sessions, then a U.S. Attorney, at his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. According to Wildman, Hebert testified reluctantly “that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) “un-American” and “Communist-inspired.” And Figures–then an assistant U.S. Attorney–told the committee that “during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he ‘used to think they [the Klan] were OK’ until he found out some of them were ‘pot smokers.'” [emphasis mine]

That is truly the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. It perfectly captures how entrenched into backwardness the modern Republican Party has become. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sessions was joking when he said that, but the joke’s clearly on the GOP now.

Only 23 percent of Americans self-identify as Republicans today. That may seem like a small number, but believe it or not, it’s actually not much different than what it was during the early 1980s. The bigger differences today lie with independent voters and the social issues that motivated that small Republican base to dominate American politics for so long.

A recent poll showed that support for gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, and easing immigration restrictions are all at record highs. For years, the Republicans rallied their base around these social issues, and the backfiring of this strategy is now at full blast. The young people who grew up in the 80s and 90s have grown up seeing the Republican Party as a threat to social justice and in many cases a direct threat to their own freedom and security. And it’s perfectly fitting that as a black Democrat sits in the Oval Office, the main Republican to oppose his first Supreme Court nomination is someone who in 1986 was a harbinger of the extremism that would eventually befall that party.

In 1986, the leaders of the Republican Party undoubtedly saw themselves as a party of small government principles. But that’s not what got people to the polls. In order to do that, it became a party that played upon a fear that within 25 years, there would be a black President nominating a Puerto Rican woman to the Supreme Court; that gay people would be considered equals in our society; and that pot really isn’t that scary and is ready to be as socially accepted as alcohol. Now that their fears have become a reality, and the fact that no one else seems to share that fear, they’ve just become a bizarre lunatic fringe.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0[/youtube]

[via Demo Kid]

– Scott Sunde writes in the PI about the upcoming attempt to extradite Marc Emery to Seattle to face drug distribution charges for selling marijuana seeds to Americans. Not even pot, just seeds. The extradition is set for the first week in June. As one of Emery’s 4,999 Facebook friends, I have to admit that it feels weird to be so closely connected to someone who our government considers the largest drug kingpin in Canada. Our laws really couldn’t be any stupider.

– KUOW’s Weekday program did an excellent hour on drug policy [mp3]. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg was part of the panel, and I have to say, if Republicans want to figure out how to become relevant again, they need to listen to that guy. Yes, using science and reason on topics like drug policy will make the base of the Republican Party mad as hell, but if you don’t do it, that base will just keep shrinking. At some point, you need to dump the loonies and start making sense to independent voters again.

– The arrogance and ignorance within Kitsap County’s Prosector’s Office is starting to get even more attention across the country.

– As a new father, this news item was extra terrifying for me.

Last week’s contest was won by State Rep. Geoff Simpson, who emailed me the correct answer of San Diego. In honor of the first win by an elected official, here’s this week’s picture, good luck!

This is pure awesomeness:

Last year, when law professor Joel Reidenberg wanted to show his Fordham University class how readily private information is available on the Internet, he assigned a group project. It was collecting personal information from the Web about himself.

This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview.

His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia’s home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife’s personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren, reports Above the Law.

And, as Scalia himself made clear in a statement to Above the Law, he isn’t happy about the invasion of his privacy:

“Professor Reidenberg’s exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any,” the justice says, among other comments.

– The two individuals indicted along with Marc Emery for selling marijuana seeds to American customers came down to Seattle from B.C. this week to enter a plea of guilty after reaching an agreement that would keep them from having to serve jail time. The formal sentencing will be on July 17. Hopefully, we’ll see a new U.S. Attorney for Western Washington who will have the sense to finally drop the charges against Emery and his partners and focus our limited resources on real criminals.

– Jacob Sullum looks at the potential for disaster as we plan to step up our efforts in Afghanistan.

– The Obama Administration moves to end the disparity between crack and powder cocaine penalties.

– The Cannabis Defense Coalition has posted its calendar of court dates. Over the next two months, there will be hearings in King, Snohomish, Mason, Okanagan, Grant, Stevens, and Kitsap Counties. I don’t know much about any of these cases, and some of them may be against individuals who were doing things outside of the medical marijuana law, but having observers in each of these courtrooms has been a tremendous help in making sure that any valid patients don’t get railroaded. If you have any interest in being an observer, please contact the CDC to find out about carpooling with others.

– If you thought that Obama was serious about not staffing his administration with any anti-science ideologues, you might want to think again.

– I almost missed the news of Pontiac’s demise. My dad, who has reliably bought only American cars since 1970, gave me his 1989 Grand Prix (manual transmission!) while I was in college. The Ann Arbor winters were rough on that thing, and within two years, much of the gray paint had peeled off the roof. I took it into a dealership in Lansing (where I was living for a summer) where I was told, “sorry, the car’s more than 5 years old, it’s not covered anymore”. My next car was a used BMW.

– And even more off-topic for this blog, my wife is a huge fan of Jon and Kate Plus 8, so I’ve been hearing a lot about this all week. All I know is that I’m looking forward to the episode where all hell breaks loose at a Pennsylvania Chuck E Cheese.

Last week in TIME Magazine, Maia Szalavitz wrote about Glenn Greenwald’s report on the success of drug decriminalization in Portugal. In the article, she quotes one person skeptical of whether that success can be brought here to the states:

“I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn’t having much influence on our drug consumption,” says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.

When a reader at Greenwald’s Salon blog asked him about Kleiman’s thoughts, here was Greenwald’s response [via DWR]:

Mark Kleinman emailed me once about something I wrote and had a major outburst, expressing all sorts of hostility – I’m not saying that motivated him to dismiss the relevance of Portugal, but I am going tow rite and demand specifics.

I find it so shallow and vapid when people say: “We can’t look to what happened in that country because there are cultural differences and size differences” without being specific — why would drug decriminalization work with a population of 10 million people but not 300 million? What, specifically, are the meaningful “cultural differences” between Portugal and the U.S. that allows decriminalization to work in the former but not the latter?

In fairness to Kleiman, he was quoted in that article and thus not necessarily able to control what was conveyed, but I am going to demand some specifics from him.

After reading that, I was reminded of an exchange that Kleiman had with several commenters at his site a while back over the same subject. In the comments of this post, a commenter wrote:

Mark, you’ve claimed a few times that European and Canadian successes at various forms of drug “reform” can’t be used as examples for the US, because social conditions are different here. (If I’ve mischaracterized you here, please correct me.)

I’d like to know just what social features of Europe and Canada you believe to be responsible for the success of these programs there, and how you would expect similar programs to fail in the US due to different conditions here.

Kleiman responded with a list of 14 items (his comments don’t have numbers or links, but it was posted at June 21, 2006 04:29 AM, about 1/2 way down the thread). Later on the thread, I picked apart a few of the items. Looking back at the list again and using Portugal as a comparison point, it’s even easier to see that a number of the items are irrelevant (1, 4) or untrue – either outright or as a difference (2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). But what’s even more amusing about that list is that almost all of the reasons that he gives (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14) are things that are either caused – or greatly exacerbated – by drug prohibition itself. That’s like saying “oh my, our eagerness to wage war and torture people has made the rest of the world really mad at us. I guess we have no choice now but to keep waging more wars and torturing people”. Or to borrow a modern overused office expression – “the beatings will continue until morale improves”.

Of course, when Kleiman wrote that comment, he was addressing cases like Zurich, Amsterdam, and Vancouver, which may have fit his list a little better, but now that he’s thrown out the same exact argument to Greenwald because “Portugal is smaller than the U.S.” and has vague “cultural differences,” it certainly seems like this is a case where the conclusion stays the same while the justifications keep changing.

I’m not going to jump to any conclusions here about Kleiman’s motivations. A lot of people in the drug law reform community scratch their heads as to why Kleiman sometimes makes very eloquent analyses on the failures of drug policy, but then will turn around and lash out at people who simply follow that path to its logical conclusions. Either way, I’m looking forward to Kleiman’s response to Greenwald, but not holding my breath.

The annual Global Marijuana March takes place the first Saturday each May in over 200 cities across the globe to protest the prohibition of marijuana. If you want to participate in the Seattle march, here are the details:

Where: Volunteer Park in Capitol Hill

When: Saturday, May 2 – 12:00 noon

People will then march down to Westlake Center between 1-2pm for a rally with guest speakers and live music.

Last week’s contest was won by 2cents. It was The Rhein Tower in Dusseldorf, Germany. Here’s this week’s, good luck!