The Bull in Full

Musing on a Framework for Recreational Intoxicant Regulation

Personal #1 blog addiction Andrew Sullivan has a characteristic post about marijuana decriminalization and/or legalization along with other illegal drugs. So, since I took yesterday off from just about anything resembling an obligation to DCM, UNC, First Pres, or anything else, I seem to actually have the inclination to commit to blog the idea I've had about this for a while.

First off, let me say that, largely speaking, I'm firmly in the legalization camp as far as it goes for marijuana, and I strongly sympathize with the anti-Prohibitionist logic for legalization of a wide range of currently illegal drugs. However, this comes with a big caveat -- legalization is more than simply removing the laws from the books that prohibit it, or as Sullivan advocates...

Just legalize it for adults, place strong constraints on minors finding a way to purchase it, and stop using pot arrests as some benchmark for police success, especially when there is an obvious racial dispairty in enforcement of the law. It's not that hard.

Well, actually, it is kind of that hard. Here's the thing -- all excellent arguments against the horrendously expensive, corrupt, and abysmally ineffective "War on Drugs," drugs do ruin people's lives. Substance abuse is a killer of dreams, relationships, careers, families, and of course, people. Simply because the drug war isn't working and is causing horrific problems, that doesn't mean there aren't serious issues to be considered when undoing it.

The best illustration of this comes from the classic example cited by legalization proponents -- the 18th and 21st Amendments to the US Constitution. Prohibition was of course a terrible failure in its aims, but the success of alcohol re-legalization went far beyond simply repealing the 18th, as Daniel Okrent's book makes pretty clear. The post-Prohibition alcohol regulatory state includes, unlike the pre-Prohibition alcohol regulatory state, regulations on who can sell alcohol, who can buy it, where it can be sold, when it can be sold, and how much someone can drink before driving a motor vehicle, among many other regulations.

Compare this to the failed Proposition 18 referendum in California that would have legalized marijuana. One of the major components of the anti-Prop 18 movement was to point out that the change would have made it very difficult to, say, forbid a school bus driver for showing up to work with pot in his or her system. Simply put, just as we do with alcohol, we need some parameters on just how intoxicated someone can be before a variety of legal restrictions kick in.

To my mind, alcohol has to be the lodestar on what I'd classify as the group of "recreational intoxicants," but a quick examination shows that alcohol regulations are already pretty loosey-goosey, and prone to a lot of subjective determinations. For example, there's no specific limit set on how much alcohol someone can have before operating a 500-lb forklift at work. Everyone pretty much agrees that an employee who shows up for work with booze on his or her breath to operate heavy machinery should at the very least get sent home and should probably just be fired on the spot, but clearly someone who takes a small amount of low-strength cough syrup containing a small but measurable amount of ethanol before coming to work at a desk job is probably fine. On the other side of the scale, there are laws against "public drunkenness," but while the legal driving limit is .08, the standard for an arrest for public drunkenness is self-evidently much higher, although undefined. In short, we've already worked out informal standards for alcohol, but such standards are far from apparent when it comes to currently illegal recreational intoxicants, such as marijuana or cocaine.

So here's where I come down on this: for any recreational intoxicant we're going to consider we need a reliable means of measuring level of intoxication, on par with Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). From there, we should be able to establish a four-tiered level of what activities one can and can't do depending on how intoxicated one has become. In the process of doing this, I not only use alcohol as an example, but I'd actually advocate these as changes to the standing alcohol intoxication laws. For legalization of marijuana, as I mention above, there would need to be some scientifically established measurements on what blood THC levels implied what level of intoxication, which could be subsequently modified by the political process. (There appears to be crude measurements for ng/mL for THC as it is, but there's no widely available test for this.) Anyway, here's how I'd break it down for alcohol:

Tier 0: Sober

Define this as < .04 BAC. At this level, with exceptions for high risk jobs like heavy machinery operators, a person is presumed to be at their unimpaired capacity. Perhaps this is to fine a point to draw on it, but I envision a level where the presumption is, regardless of the intoxicant, below the defined level, the burden of proof lies on a regulator, an employer, or a prosecutor to demonstrate that an intoxicant interferes with normal capacities.

Tier 1: Affected? Impacted?

There's not a ready-made word for this level -- both "intoxicated" and "impaired" already have legal connotations, or I'd be tempted to borrow one of those. Suffice to say that while I'm pretty sure I've never or almost never driven while intoxicated over the .08 BAC limit, there's plenty of times where, in retrospect, I was driving after drinking and was certainly not 100% sober. "Tipsy" is the polite word used for this state. For alcohol, let's define this as between .04 and .08 BAC.

One complaint that many law enforcement officers have is that the .08 limit is really a bit ridiculously high. In order to crack .08, you really have to be seriously impaired. I'd say that I think our current legal penalties for driving over .08 are probably appropriate, but that we need an equivalent of a "9 mph over the limit" speeding ticket for drinking -- one that counts as a minor penalty on insurance, and maybe can get dismissed based on a clean record, but that is still a pain to deal with and grounds for citation. Furthermore, this level should be the point at which any employer should have the benefit of the doubt for reprimanding or firing an employee for showing up to work.

Tier 2: Impaired

Currently, most US states prohibit driving at above the .08 limit, but laws beyond that are fuzzy. Here's a list of things I think should be outright banned if someone is intoxicated on alcohol or some other substance to the point of impairment:

• Carrying a firearm on ones person
• Serving in a custodial role to a minor
• Purchasing alcohol or other recreational intoxicant
• Any other activity in need of regulation for which loss of judgment could lead to the endangerment of others

The less formal way of putting this would be, what should a drunk person not be allowed to do?

Tier 3: Loss of Personal Responsibility

And here we get to a key component of regulating drugs that I think worries a lot of people and that current alcohol laws fail to enforce. What happens when someone gets intoxicated to the point that they become a danger to others, simply based on their inability to act in a basic, responsible manner? My take on this is simply, if you allow yourself to become intoxicated to this level, you have surrendered one of your most basic freedoms, and that is your responsibility for your own actions in public.

I'm not sure where I'd put this threshold for alcohol -- probably in the .15-.20 range. Suffice to say, though, this is the level at which one should not be allowed to be unsupervised in a public place. If one is in a public place, then one should either be in the custody and care of someone who is unimpaired at the very least at Tier 1 in this scale, and probably Tier 0, otherwise I see no problem with law enforcement having the right to take a person at this level into custody for the simple act of public safety.

So what was the point of all of that?

One of the problems I have with current recreational intoxicant laws, including both alcohol and illegal drug laws, is that they violate the spirit of the liberal state -- that is, they do not regulate harms between parties, as John Stuart Mill envisioned, but regulate personal actions which often have no immediate impact on others. Notice that in all of the above expansions and tightening of regulations on substance use, there's nothing anywhere that prohibits people from sitting in their own houses (without children present) and getting drunk or stoned or high to the point of drooling or vomiting or passing out, provided they don't leave the house. And that, in my opinion, is a major improvement over current laws. Yes, it's a tragedy when someone abuses as substance to that level, but that doesn't make it a reason he or she should go to prison for it. However, unlike the blanket removals of regulations that some legalization proponents advocate, it still protects society at large from the dangers posed by drug users, by specifically prohibiting actions rather than more nebulous things like "possession with intent to distribute."

To illustrate, let's move out of the well-worn paths of alcohol and marijuana to the more touchy subject of cocaine. In low concentrations, coca leaf extract is a mild stimulant which is almost certainly safer for general consumption than its highly toxic cousin, caffeine. (In fact, one of the reasons cocaine is banned and highly concentrated caffeine is not is that snorting a comparable amount of caffeine would be almost instantly fatal, so isn't prone to recreational abuse.) So, at some very low levels of blood content, coca extract should frankly be perfectly legal for use in soft drinks and energy drinks. I don't know what the comparable levels are for cocaine -- I've never used it myself, and have only been around those using it once or twice -- but given a means of measuring blood levels, it shouldn't be hard to come up with tiers that match the above. Perhaps one line of cocaine is enough to shoot one directly into Tier 3, I have no idea. But with this framework, you're banning the actual use of a substance in a means that could cause harm to others, rather than the substance itself. This removes all sorts of nonsense from the criminal code, and could straighten out law enforcement and prosecution significantly.

This isn't everything that has to go into a revamped regulatory structure for recreational intoxicants. Like alcohol, strict stamping, taxing, regulation of intoxicant levels, warning labels, distribution licensing, and all of that are part of it. But those are less sticky to solve -- replicating the alcohol regulation and enforcement structure there largely answers the question. My purpose here is to try to think of a legal framework that is both based on clear, empirical, and enforceable measures that law enforcement, social workers, and legalization advocates can live with (while probably not entirely happy with). Anyway, I'd love to hear comments from those who are more involved in the issues.

Dear Foster's

Some things I need to get off my chest:

1. Why do otherwise reasonable restaurants feel the need to put things into big styrofoam clamshells?  I just ordered a breakfast burrito to go -- really, all I'm looking for is some wax paper to wrap it in and maybe a paper bag with some napkins.  And furthermore, if you're putting it in a big styrofoam clamshell, it's pretty gratuitous to set it up in a nice little presentation with one half perched on the other, with slices of fruit and parsley.  Parsley!  In a styrofoam clamshell!  Look, if you're going for good presentation, ditch the clamshell. Or better yet, give it up.  It's a to go order, why do you think I want parsley with that?
2. And what is up with the pillowy eggs?  I've never had scrambled eggs outside of a burrito that are fluffed up like an super-puffed omelet, but with no omelet-like things in them.  Come to think of it, this is the like the third time in the past several months that I've gone somewhere to order a breakfast burrito, and had it come out all nicely presented in a styrofoam clamshell with pillowy  eggs inside.  Is one of the local culinary schools teaching people to do this?  If so, please stop.  Now.  It's weirding me out.
3. Was it absolutely necessary to put the single slice of zucchini bread in yet another small clamshell, wrapped in a piece of wax paper?  I never get things like this.  When I used to eat at Boston Market more, they would insist on putting the cornbread for a to go order in a separate paper bag.  Is this somehow supposed to improve the presentation?  Are you just trying to make it harder for me to carry everything out of your store?  Are you getting kickbacks from Dow corp for how much styrofoam you manage to move?  Ugh.

(See, I told you this was going to happen.)

Manzi, Hayek, and climate change

Since Andrew Sullivan came around to opposing the Iraq war and supported Obama, and I can't in any good faith refer to him as a rhetorical opponent in current ideological divisions, Jim Manzi has become my favorite conservative to read and wrestle my disagreements with.  I even had an oblique chance at dialog last year when Sully published a few of my e-mails on climate change, and Manzi responded.  He has consistently been one of those at a considerable ideological distance from me who I enjoy reading thoroughly.

I've appreciated Manzi's rigorous analysis on climate change, and was looking forward to a long form, updated perspective on climate change and carbon regulation as he was guest blogging this week.  Which is why I'm extremely disappointed in today's note on the social cost of carbon as he guest blogs at Sully's place.  This essay, to put it frankly, is an unholy mess.

Manzi is assuredly more versed in Hayek than I am, but my understanding of the basic warning is that more government planning of the economy leads to a decrease in individual liberty, which has a concomitant deleterious impact on productive economies due to the inflexibilities of a rigid state program.  If this is a fair summary, then I find Manzi's argument that carbon regulation is somehow akin to this in any but the most broadly ideological forms extremely underdetermined.

The meat of the post, I would say, offers what I would call a roundly convincing argument that meaningful quantitative analysis of the economic impacts of carbon regulation approaches impossibility, or as Manzi puts it, 'There is no analytical basis on which we can really “put a price on carbon”.'  I might add that he has equally demonstrated that there is no analytical basis on which we can really put a price on the costs of carbon emissions. 

I don't think this is a malicious or intentionally misleading error.  My understanding of Manzi's analytical personality is that his primary impulse is to try to tackle complex issues with highly sophisticated quantitative analytical methods, and shake out strong and useful conclusions.  From what I have read of him, he is remarkably good at it.  However, as the saying goes, when one spends all day using a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail, and in this case, I think Manzi is using his quantitative skills to pound a screw.

For one thing, Manzi brushes the entirity of "social cost of carbon" into the potential decline in world economic product (a loss of approximately 3%).  This not only excludes costs which I would deem "social" such as habitat and species loss, land degradation, and changes in local climate, but also aggregates the risk into a global pool, which is assuredly too crude a measure to make a meaningful judgment.  To take the extreme case, what if the 3% loss were entirely distributed in 6% of the world's population losing half their economic productivity?   The 3% measure looks small on paper, but in this instance 180 million people (over half the population of the US) just had their livelihoods utterly destroyed, to the point that they are now refugees.  While this extreme concentration of risk is certainly fiction, it is patently clear to both the casual reader and the sophisticated analyst that the costs of climate change will not be equally distributed.  The risks to the majority of the 160 million in Bangladesh should be enough to invalidate such crude aggregation of costs.

For another, in his association of all British driving taxes with "anthropogenic global warming (AGW)," he elides the myriad other costs of driving, including public health, land use, public land preservation, safety and enforcement, etc.  Yes, once again these costs are difficult to quantify.  This, however, does not mean they do not exist.

After dozens of paragraphs of analytical spinning, Manzi reaches the third to last, and engages in a breathtaking series of theoretical leaps.  Costs are impossible to quantify, therefore "It becomes pure power politics," and therefore is a state imposition of economic costs without quantitative justification, and is therefore akin to total state planning of the economy.  Excuse me, but WHAT?!? 

To put this as simply as I can, there is a vast universe between "inability to sufficiently quantify" and "a different theoretical justification [for socialism]."  What Manzi is experiencing is not the unearthing of socialist motives, but the limits of the quantitative revolution of the 20th century.  There was a time, as strict Enlightenment rationalism and to a lesser extent, positivism reached their zenith, that we supposed that all complex issues could be solved with sufficient quantitative analysis.  Difficult questions such as the costs of action or inaction on climate change demonstrate this as well as anything, but the lesson to take here is not that we have no analytical tools at all and retreat to pristine ideological tropes.  (In this, I think Manzi is unintentionally making what I might call the Bachmann move -- it's impossible to quantify, and it involves government action, therefore it is the first step towards tyranny.)  Rather, it should be a clarion call to dust off analytical methods tossed aside during much of the quantitative revolution, such as informal logic, deep description, dialectics, rigorous observation, ethics, and comparative studies.  (One can even retain critical rationalism, just without getting lost in numbers.) 

There are others attempting to do their best to apply broader principles to understanding the impacts of climate change.  Manzi's argument over the past 18 months has been to repeatedly emphasize that the correct response to this question is to quantify the costs and the benefits.  He now illustrates that those costs and benefits are impossible to quantify, and therefore takes it as Q.E.D. that we must retreat to extremely abstract arguments (as in, this kind of smells vaguely like Hayek).  This might be forgivable if Manzi put any effort whatsoever into a rigorous consideration of the situation, along the lines of what Hayek actually did in his critique of government planners.  Instead, he makes this jump in a few brief sentences which rely entirely on vague notions.  Unfortunately, I have to say I found this neither convincing nor even challenging.  Instead, it seems to mark for me the end of Manzi's meaningful contribution to the debate, which is really too bad.

The Slow and Subtle Rot* of Tony Rand: Part I

The making of law in North Carolina is an insider game, full of murky corners and byzantine turns to the point that only the obsessive manage to keep track of it all.  While in name all of our representatives wield power in the General Assembly, in reality an enormous amount of the ultimate decision making lies in the hands of a very small number of individuals.  In the state Senate, for instance, Marc Basnight of Manteo has held sway over the body for over 15 years, and has enormous sway over which bills come to the floor and which don't.  While having this much power concentrated in a single individual may be dangerous, to my eyes, Basnight's decisions are on the whole more good than bad.  The second in command in the Senate, however, goes by a name that oddly seems to appear just about every time a worthwhile bill I support dies on procedural maneuvering, an under-the-table slop bucket gets passed to the UNC system (specifically Chapel Hill), or, as is the case today, a particularly odious budget suddenly slams out of the Senate.  That name is Tony Rand, Majority Leader of the Senate.

His influence, however, is subtle enough that it rarely makes the news and is hard to nail down when trying to describe it to others.  There's no smoking gun to pin on him that doesn't involve getting into bureaucratic bilgewater to some extent.  Frankly, though, I'm getting sick of his nonsense, so here's an attempt to start taking note every time Rand shivs a bill, takes writing another into secret conference, or slips questionable powers to some agency in the dark of night.

Our first installment comes from the invaluable NC Policy Watch:

The Senate gave final approval to its version of the state budget Thursday, though even if you happened to be at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, you would have almost certainly missed it.  The Senator who represents you had no opportunity to say anything at all about how the state should address a $4 billion shortfall and balance the budget, much less offer any amendments to protect human services or spare public schools from damaging cuts.

The Senate leadership made sure of that Wednesday when Majority Leader Tony Rand invoked a parliamentary maneuver to end discussion after budget writers described the plan's highlights, a few Republicans complained, and a few amendments were buried.

Under the Senate rules, ending the debate on Wednesday also ended it Thursday before it could begin.

There wasn't much discussion of the amendments either. Rand moved to table each one not long after they were explained and several of his Democratic colleagues enthusiastically vied to second his motion.

If you are tempted to brush all this off as a boring legislative procedure, resist the urge. The process is not only undemocratic and offensive, it is a symbol of the worst of the legislative culture.

For further reading on Tony Rand, while I don't have links handy, other interesting instances are: Rand killing a bill from Mickey Micheaux to give more magistrates and court staff to Durham County's horribly clogged and understaffed judicial system; Rand getting a bill to give all recipients of athletic scholarships at UNC and NCSU (and no other schools) in-state tuition; Rand giving UNC eminent domain power in all of Orange County for the purposes of building another airport.  More to come, I have no doubt.

* I want to note that I spent a good while with the thesaurus trying to come up with the right word here.  "Corruption" is a tad too strong for Rand, and I worry that "rot" is too.  Rand is bad for North Carolina, capricious in his decision making, and infuriating in his politics, but I have no evidence that he takes kick-backs or bribes.  (At least, no more than the standard campaign contribution racket.)

Christmases, Merry and Creepy

Well, first things first. Merry Christmas, Durham.

With that out of the way, let's finish up what we started, and award the winners of the 2008 Bull in Full Christmas Creep Awards. Many thanks to all those who chimed in on the nominations post with some great ideas. Please see below for the full details.

Before we get into the awards, though, I did want to note some heartening trend. While the worst of the worst continued the race to the bottom by rolling out christmas promotions in October, I noticed a growing number of retailers and other potential creeps showing notable restraint. When I went into Linens 'N' Things for the going out of business sale the weekend before Thanksgiving, I noticed that the dippy muzak faintly emanating from the overhead speakers was the best of 80's light rock, rather than jazzy synthy versions of Christmas standards. WRAL-FM, which normally holds to the "no schlock too sappy" standard, refrained from any sleigh bells during a several hour portion of time I was forced to listen to it. And as far as I know, Nordstrom continued its policy of not rolling out the Christmas decorations.

A very brief post-Thanksgiving rant

There are some traditions that are time-honored and classic, and other traditions that are completely stupid, counter-productive, and need to die.

In the latter category, we find the annual spate of presidents and governors pardoning turkeys.

This all got started when the prize turkey was presented to the president as part of the first family's Thanksgiving meal.  Naturally, the Presidential turkey would be a prime specimen, and the Presdient would have the opportunity to inspect the bird, in one of those somewhat silly rituals.  According to one website I found, the practice of pardoning the turkeys goes back to 1989 and the first President Bush, and both Clinton and Bush 43 have continued the practice.

This would be a sweet gesture, except for two things.  The pardoned turkeys, being almost exclusively Broadbreasted White breeds, are bred to mature quickly and have ridiculously oversized breasts, all of which shortens the life spans of the turkeys.  So, the turkey with a new lease on life generally survives about 2-3 months past Thanksgiving, then dies a natural death.  Secondly, in almost all cases, the President and family actually sit down and eat a turkey for Thanksgiving, so the whole pardon thing is largely a charade. 

Let's make this simple and brief: if you're going to pardon a turkey for Thanksgiving, don't eat turkey for dinner.  If you're going to eat turkey for dinner, accept the prize bird and have someone go chop its head off and prep it for you.  The current state is simply hypocritical and furthers the mental separation of food on the plate and where it comes from.

The 2008 Christmas Creep Awards

By popular demand.  From a comment that got posted in the 2007 post a few days ago...

Sorry to be off-topic, but can you do the 2008 Christmas Creep Awards? If there were a clear nomination on the "Other" category, I would happily nominate the Magic Kingdom, a Walt Disney World theme park located an hour away from Brandon, FL. Its Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party kicks off with the first two select nights falling the day before and dead on Veterans Day this year. It sorta makes me laugh because WDW is one of the recent victims to succumb to this Christmas creep malarkey (at least the Magic Kingdom)!

This is about the third comment I've had about the Christmas Creep Awards (a.k.a., the "Bad Santas") this year, which is enough encouragement for me to break them out again. For the third year, I'm putting this blog in the service of fighting back against Christmas Creep and the Creeps that keep creeping it backwards in the calendar. From last year's post:

I happen to like Christmas an awful lot. Without going into the details of how my family observes it, let's just say that I'm awfully fond of the exchanging of gifts, the emphasis on light and the story of light entering the world, the decoration of greenery, (some of) the carols, the piles of sugar and chocolate one inevitably consumes, candlelight services on Christmas Eve, advent services at Church, yes, all that. But I like it in my own way, at its own time, and I don't want to be so saturated with jingly nonsense to the point that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around I'm already getting physically ill at the sound of sleigh bells.

The requests for your help are the same as last year's:

First, I need nominations. I'll suggest a few categories below, but these can be expanded if we have a rush on things. Second, I'd really like to come up with some nice, pretty color awards. In my mind, these feature some sort of image of Santa (quite possibly featuring Billy Bob Thronton, if the copyright police don't become problematic), with the words "Bad Santa!" featured prominently, along with a citation as a Christmas Creep and a detail of the offense. If someone with mad crazy photoshop skills feels like going at this, I'd be appreciative.

We never did the certificates (in fact, I never even posted a list of winners), but hey, maybe this year is the year. (And maybe we could present them with this in lieu of an Oscar statue.) Rules and procedures below the fold -- please hit me with the worst of the worst.

Nominations for the 2007 Christmas Creep Awards (a.k.a., the Bad Santas)

As what Joe has termed "catalog season" winds down, and we start to move into what might legitimately be called the "Christmas Season," let us take a look back on the past month, particularly the money-grubbing interests who deem it a good idea to flog us repeatedly with cloying symbols of a holiday that at one point was a source of joy and peace, until it becomes nothing more than a bad sales pitch.

These are the Christmas Creeps, those who allow Christmas to creep ever backward on the calendar, to the point that the holiday season never ends.

Now, before someone goes Bill O'Reilly on me and starts accusing me of being at "War on Christmas," or some other equally inane nonsense, let me make something clear:  I happen to like Christmas an awful lot.  Without going into the details of how my family observes it, let's just say that I'm awfully fond of the exchanging of gifts, the emphasis on light and the story of light entering the world, the decoration of greenery, (some of) the carols, the piles of sugar and chocolate one inevitably consumes, candlelight services on Christmas Eve, advent services at Church, yes, all that.  But I like it in my own way, at its own time, and I don't want to be so saturated with jingly nonsense to the point that by the time Thanksgiving rolls around I'm already getting physically ill at the sound of sleigh bells.

Last year, I called for a boycott.  This year, we're taking it a step further -- I'm going to hand out awards for worst Christmas Creep.  And here's where you come in.  First, I need nominations.  I'll suggest a few categories below, but these can be expanded if we have a rush on things.  Second, I'd really like to come up with some nice, pretty color awards.  In my mind, these feature some sort of image of Santa (quite possibly featuring Billy Bob Thronton, if the copyright police don't become problematic), with the words "Bad Santa!" featured prominently, along with a citation as a Christmas Creep and a detail of the offense.  If someone with mad crazy photoshop skills feels like going at this, I'd be appreciative. 

If we get a good response here (i.e., it doesn't become apparent that nobody cares and I'm just ranting into space), I will actually print out certificates for the winners and deliver them to them.  Normally, I wouldn't like being confrontational about this.  But this whole "more More MORE CHRISTMAS!!!!" trend is really beginning to piss me off.

Rules (such as they are) for the contest are below the fold.

Ow! Ow! My head!

I get e-mail:

Attention NCSSM Alumni,

Be sure to come out tomorrow evening, Friday, November 16, to support the NCSSM Men's Varsity Soccer Team as they play in their first-ever NCHSAA 1-A State Championship against East Montgomery. The game is tomorrow evening at 5 o'clock at:

Durham Bulls Soccer Stadium
At WRAL Soccer Center
7700 Perry Creek Road
Raleigh, NC 27616-5704

Okay, let me get this straight.  There's a Durham Bulls Soccer Stadium.  In Raleigh.  In NORTHEAST Raleigh, a good 40 minute drive from Durham.

WHAT THE HELL?

Yes, I know.  Capital Broadcasting owns Durham Bulls and WRAL, so they're using this as a marketing opportunity.  But look at it again.

The naming rights to a stadium have been bought.  By another sports franchise.  IN A DIFFERENT SPORT THAT DOESN'T EVEN PLAY THERE!  INCLUDING THE NAME OF A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CITY!

On a remotely related note, WRAL-FM has now started playing Christmas music, earning them a nomination for the coveted Christmas Creep awards, joining 102.9 in that dubious distinction.  (More on the CC Awards soon.)

Oh, one more thing...

Secant tangent cosine sine!
3.14159!
Physics, Bio, Polymer Chem!
Give 'em hell, Go S&M!

Schelp vs. Funderburk

My neighbor John Schelp is rarely at a loss for words when it comes to local politics.  This election season is apparently no different.  John sent out this e-mail to what I'm guessing is a number of folks last night, and I asked him if I could reprint it here. 

Tell it like it is, John...

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In the 11/02 Herald-Sun, longtime Duke University administrator Laney Funderburk describes:

"a city government that spends its time 'careening from one crisis to another,' that's overly image-conscious and that sometimes makes decisions that 'smack of cronyism.'"

Funny, that's a pretty darn good description of Duke.

The rest below the fold.

Update: Barry beat me to it this morning.