Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, June 2, 2011

The War On Drugs Is Over

And The Drugs Won!


Commentary By Ron Beasley


Drugs A panel of former government leaders have stated the obvious - The War On Drugs Has Failed.



The global war on drugs has "failed" according to a new report by a group of politicians and former world leaders.


The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.


The panel includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.


The US and Mexican governments have rejected the findings as misguided.


The Global Commission's 24-page report argues that anti-drug policy has failed by fuelling organised crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths.


It cites UN estimates that opiate use increased 35% worldwide from 1998 to 2008, cocaine by 27%, and cannabis by 8.5%.



The United States alone has more of it's population imprisoned than any other country in the world and much of that is drug related.  The majority of problems along the Mexican border is now related to drugs and Mexico itself is becoming a failed state. 


We apparently learned nothing from the prohibition of alcohol which did little but create criminals.


 



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1 comment:

  1. Gavin R. PutlandJune 5, 2011 at 1:26 PM

    The reversal of the onus of proof in drug-possession cases is incompatible with the rule of law and is therefore unconstitutional in all jurisdictions.
    More: http://is.gd/ccxry6 .

    ReplyDelete

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